


Prize of Victory 2

by NovaAlexandria



Category: Bleach
Genre: Abuse, Aizen Sosuke Being a Bastard, Aizen Sousuke Wins, F/F, F/M, God Aizen Sousuke, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Master/Slave, Mental Anguish, Mental Coercion, Minor Character Death, Physical Abuse, Pregnancy, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sexual Slavery, Slavery, Torture, Unplanned Pregnancy, War, child threats, slave - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:01:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 71
Words: 475,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26204632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NovaAlexandria/pseuds/NovaAlexandria
Summary: The defence net has fallen and the Swarm return as a large threat. Aizen does not take Chaos in his empire well and five years of relief from his displeasure is at an end as he places more and more restriction on the conquered. Karin must find a way to keep Aizen from learning of her family ties to the throne he covets while the Swarm continue to push her towards taking it. For some, things have gotten better, for others, things have gotten worse.
Relationships: Abarai Renji/Nelliel Tu Oderschvank, Grimmjow Jaegerjaques/Kurosaki Karin, Ise Nanao/Coyote Starrk, Sui-Feng | Soifon/Ggio Vega, Szayel Aporro Granz/Kurotsuchi Nemu, Tia Harribel/Hitsugaya Toushirou, Ulquiorra Cifer/Inoue Orihime, tesla lindocruz/arisawa tatsuki
Comments: 196
Kudos: 67





	1. Chapter 1

"Good afternoon, my dear Espada. Another year has passed us by and once more we celebrate the day of our Victory and my Ascension. I trust all has been going well with your prizes, yes?"

Aizen addressed the collective gathering pleasantly, ending his sentence with a sip of tea from his cup. Despite his rank of Kami, Aizen's cup was still a simple earthenware container instead of one made from delicate, horribly expensive bone china, as would be expected of such a high-ranking person. When she was a child, Ajuga had once asked him why he hadn't upgraded his drinking vessel accordingly (Hana had been too afraid to say anything) his reply was simple: china allowed the tea to cool too quickly, whereas the thicker earthenware kept it at a hot temperature considerably longer, letting one savour it the way tea was meant to be enjoyed.

The answers to Aizen's opening question varied. Everything from grunts of agreement to proper and formal polite 'yeses' were given. Despite the various responses, they were all still positive.

"Excellent. Starrk, would you please be kind enough to begin? How are your pets doing?"

"Well," Starrk answered simply, and left it at that without any further elaboration.

Some things definitely hadn't changed over the years, and the Primera was one of them. Five years was not so long to a Hollow, or to a Shinigami for that matter. Still, Starrk's ability to doze off in mid-sentence was something to behold.

"What of Jushiro's health?" Aizen prompted, letting his eyes slide to the silver-haired man sitting silently beside his Master.

Jushiro sat with his head bowed and his hands clasped before him in a pose of obedient submission. The only time he moved from that pose was when he took a polite sip of the tea Aizen provided for his 'guests' during these meetings.

"Mmph…Still cough-free and half-blind," Starrk replied with a huge yawn and a scratch to his side. It was faint, but he said this with just the slightest hint of displeasure at the end, which he managed to cover up with another yawn.

Aizen had been the one responsible for nearly blinding Jushiro and would have fully blinded him, as had been his intent at the time, had Jushiro's highly-trained reflexes not kicked in, causing him to flinch backwards before his mind had even registered he was being attacked. Lilinette, and by extension Starrk, had not been pleased with the attack on what was his/their property. In fact, Lilinette's near-unquenchable fury had pushed Starrk into action over their shared anger regarding the assault. It was the only time Starrk had ever heard anything resembling an apology from Aizen. Of course, Aizen had done nothing to rectify the mistake, since doing so would have implied that Kami had made an error in the first place and that simply didn't happen. Therefore, Jushiro remained half-blind, sporting a black eye patch over what Aizen had destroyed.

"And Nanao?" Aizen inquired, continuing what amounted to a politely phrased interrogation.

Unlike Jushiro, Nanao was not at the meeting, as Starrk didn't have an active Claim on her. His 'Claim' on her remained a vocal one, just like the one Ulquiorra had once held on Tatsuki before permitting her to choose her own Master.

"She's content and proud of Hana-chan for finishing her tenures at Shinōreijutsuin this summer and joining the Third Division." There just may have been a wee bit of pride in his voice as well when he said this. It was hard to tell with the First, but it was well known that Hana held a soft spot with him.

The 3rd Division had been the best choice for Hana, as members of the family ran both the 2nd and 5th Divisions and her presence in either of those units might have resulted in a conflict of interest. Aizen ran the 1st Division and neither her mother nor Karin considered it a 'safe' place. Since Hana was not a healer, assigning her a spot in Toshiro's Division had seemed like the most logical choice. He would make sure to keep an eye on her without having conflicting interest that arose when relatives worked together.

"I'm pleased to hear about her achievements. A pity she never inherited her father's strength, but I have heard that she has a rather sharp mind. Not too surprising, given her heritage. She is still young however. There is a chance she could come into her power within the next few years."

Aizen's assessment was accurate, up to a point. Yes, Hana was getting older, and while not as powerful as her father had been, few were. She'd gained enough strength and had reached an age where she stood a chance of becoming attractive to those Arrancar that had yet to Claim pets or who had lost or dismissed the ones they'd once held. Again, finding a place for Hana in the Third Division helped ease Nanao's growing concern for her daughter's safety. It was a concern that the widow shared with her housemate and fellow mother, Karin.

Arrancar aged quickly; the deserts of Hueco Mundo were not a safe place to take one's time growing up, and Ajuga was an eye-catching choice for a mate. Barragan's thwarted attempt on her years ago proved that. Both girls were 'teenagers' now and eyes were starting to wander their direction. Their parents knew that it would only be a matter of time before someone tried something and when that happened, there were more than a few betting pools going as to how much of the suitor would be left to sweep up once Grimmjow caught sight of lesser creatures perusing his daughter. She might be older now, but the Sexta's protective instincts had never wavered and he'd never dropped his guard where his child was concerned.

Aizen turned his attention towards Barragan next.

"And how do your pets fare?"

"Obedient and acceptable, as always," the scared man grunted.

"Oh? You've nothing exciting to report?" Aizen asked in a tone that indicated he knew Barragan was withholding something he considered newsworthy.

"The broad's knocked up," Barragan admitted grudgingly.

That tidbit of information certainly caused a stir, to the Second's apparent irritation. Nemu had been the only Shinigami to produce offspring so far, so to hear of another was both interesting and to the Espada, exciting. Szayel, in particular, seemed almost giddy. His pool of hybrid test subjects had been limited so far to just two humans and one altered Shinigami.

"When is the expected due date?"

"Three months, according to your wife," Barragan grunted. The man on the throne tapped his lip with one finger, as if pondering something.

"Intriguing. That's not long at all. I trust you are following closely Szayel?" Aizen questioned the excited scientist.

"Of course, Kami-sama," he almost squealed, before visibly forcing himself to calm down. "Unohana-sama and I are keeping a close watch on the situation, just as we have with the other four current offspring, including the twins," he couldn't help but brag just a little. "I expect that her pregnancy will run similarly to the one endured by Karin-sama."

"Karin? That's new. I never knew you were so cat-like, Barragan," Aizen said with a certain amount of amusement in his voice. Unfortunately, the one receiving it wasn't inclined to agree with his 'Lord'.

"The little bastard isn't mine," Barragan sneered. "I would have ordered it destroyed if not for your insistence that the runt be born. Do not expect me to care for the thing after she whelps it," Barragan spat.

"I expect you to care for it as long as it takes to determine if the baby has any potential worth mentioning. If so, you will raise it beneath your roof for my benefit, as expected of a loyal subject. If it is not useful, then you may have your way with it."

Aizen gave a wave of his hand, indicating he was done with the subject. The Second looked as if he was simply dying to argue, but crossed his arms and 'Humphed' loudly.

Only the most observant, and those that knew her well, noted the small flinch of emotional turmoil Soi Fon gave off at the callous disregard for the child she carried. More than one of the Espada seemed angered by Barragan's words, but everyone was wise enough to keep their mouths shut about it, at least while the meeting was still in session. Still, even Nnoitra cast a look of naked disgust in the wrinkled Espada's direction.

Harribel was next.

"Nothing has changed, Aizen-Kami. Toshiro continues to perform admirably in his duties to both the Division to which he has been assigned and in the duties I request of him," she answered. "I've had no reason to exercise my control over his Claim during the last year, nor do I expect to have to do so in the future," she reported.

Nnoitra chose that moment to snort and toss a sneer in the direction of the Tercera, and immediately schooled his features when Aizen leaned back and turned to face the Fifth, one eyebrow cocked.

"Do you wish to say something, Nnoitra Gilga? Are things under your roof going so well that you want to rush ahead of the Fourth?"

For a second Nnoitra seemed to be casting about for an answer, then simply shrugged and settled on his usual overtly confident grin. He also reached back and gave the woman sitting next to him a smack on her silk-clad ass. To her credit, Rangiku didn't take her eyes off the floorboards in front of her, though her hands did tighten in the folds of the kimono's fabric, pooled around her legs.

"I ain't got any complaints. She knows exactly how I like things!" he boasted.

While Harribel gave no outward indication that Nnoitra's interruption had ruffled her in any way, Toshiro's jaw tightened a little and his eyes narrowed just a fraction at the display.

"I'm glad to hear it," Aizen said dryly. "Thank you for your input."

He did however give Harribel and Toshiro a pleased smile before turning his attention to the next of his Espada, waiting patiently as always. "Ulquiorra?" Aizen prompted.

"Things are fine," Ulquiorra said and Orihime beamed at him happily.

"How is your son?"

"He's acceptable."

Orihime elbowed him sharply in the side before wincing in pain as her soft, human flesh met the strength of his heirro. The Espada let his eyes flicker to her briefly in annoyance before letting out a barely discernible sigh and elaborated on his answer.

"He is progressing at a satisfactory rate and his behaviour is... normally perfect when not affected by… outside influences." There was the barest hint of annoyance in his voice and green eyes flickered briefly to glare at the very amused blue ones across the table.

The first chuckles since the meeting began filled the hall and smirks touched several lips. Even Aizen seemed to appreciate the way the Fourth phrased things. It was no secret that Diaemus, despite his best efforts, usually got tangled up in whatever scheme Ajuga and Hana had cooked up between them. This 'tangling' seemed to happen on a weekly basis. Ulquiorra had tried to ban his son from associating with the delinquents, but the order had quickly been recalled when _everyone_ discovered just how much **more** damage occurred without Diaemus acting as the voice of reason.

Of course, shortly after those snickers stopped, the snickers about a certain green-eyed Arrancar and a certain human woman's pinkie finger began. They were very _quiet_ snickers, however, as most of those present were not suicidal.

"Which leads us to our next group," Aizen turned his gaze towards Grimmjow and Karin. "Dare I ask how your family is coming along Grimmjow?"

"I must strongly protest this course of action," Diaemus announced in a calm voice.

"Yeah, try actually adding some emotion to that tone and I might believe you," Hana replied and laughed at him.

"You always ‘protest,’" Ajuga pointed out. "Stop being such a baby, hanging on your daddy's coattails."

The taunt appeared to have little effect on him.

"And do the protests I make in these cases more often than not end up being valid?" he shot back, ignoring her personal jab.

"My math is always dead on," Hana snorted as she crossed her arms. "I've run the calculations on this at least ten times to make sure I'm not leaving anything out. I trust those more than I trust decisions made out of fear."

"That's not the point, Diaemus," Ajuga sighed and gave Hana an encouraging look. The young Shinigami nodded and made her case yet again to the boy in front of her.

"Ajuga-chan is right. This is a matter of… oh, how should we put it?"

Hana looked at Ajuga for help and the other girl shrugged. Hana was a whiz with numbers, Ajuga with words and right now, Diaemus needed persuading with something more than data.

"Think of it as a training exercise for everyone. If the three of us can get the drop on Aizen-kami's forces, then clearly they need more training. We are simply finding and exploit…I mean, showcasing," she quickly corrected "the flaws in the Defence Net that need fixing. While doing so, we're presenting them with the opportunity to deal with defence scenarios that they might not have considered as far as preparations. Better us than the Swarm, right?" Ajuga pointed out.

Diaemus let out a sigh of defeat. Ajuga always found a way to talk him around to her point of view. Briefly, he prayed that his father would forgive him for his involvement, but he know that if he didn't go to keep an eye on the two girls, things usually ended up much, much worse for all those unlucky enough to be involved.

"Fine! Once again you have managed to convince me to participate in your wild schemes. Although, I cannot see the Swarm infiltrating our defences in such a manner, nor using the kind of creative attack that you have in mind."

"That's all the more reason for us to test this out! I can see them trying this tactic," Hana said, trying to explain her reasoning. "Just imagine: we all rush to point A and the Swarm slips in under point B."

Diaemus held back a sigh and wondered, once again, how the two girls always managed to talk him into helping them. It wasn't as if he didn't know the script by now. Ajuga and Hana were invariably caught, lectured, and punished, time after time, and yet they kept at it and somehow they had managed to reel him in yet again. He was not happy about it.

"Okay, everyone get in position. We only have a small window to pull this off without getting caught," Hana ordered, sharing a smirk with Ajuga.

"It is good to hear that…"

Suddenly, several of the perimeter tower alarms began blaring, cutting Aizen short.

For a brief movement everyone sat there and stared at each other stupidly. It had been so long since the Perimeter Breach Alarms had gone off that it took them a moment to even realize what they were hearing. Yet no one panicked, as it was common knowledge that the Science and Research Division often took down the Defence Grid for short periods, usually for maintenance.

Szayel acted first, whipping a device out of his pocket and tapping it furiously. Aizen stared at him in a displeased manner and it began to dawn on those present that the current interruption wasn't expected.

"The Net is still up and stable," Szayel reported with a slight hint of relief in his voice. "And the cameras are clear. There is no sign of Swarm activity in the vicinity."

Most of the room's reactions varied from relief to disappointment: relief for some that the population was safe and disappointment from others that they were still stuck in what amounted to an idiotic meeting and that there wasn't a fight in the offing.

The Seventh pulled out another device and flipped it open.

"What is going on?" he asked sharply as someone picked up the other end.

"It would seem that 'someone' or several 'someones' manually activated several of the Perimeter Breach Alarm towers. I would give you three guesses, Otou-san, but that would be two too many."

Abisara's young voice crackled dryly over the communication device.

Szayel's twins had grown over the last five years, and took two completely different paths while doing so. Abisara was very much his father's son, while Vindula resembled no one in her little family. If anything, she seemed more like a younger version of Ajuga, minus the ears, the tail, and the hind paws and with the addition of an appreciation of all things 'pretty'. The little girl was always eager to explore, hunt and simply get into whatever mischief she could find, often in the pursuit of something she thought attractive.

"Would you like me to override the alarms and shut them off, Otou-san?" Abisara asked.

"Yes, if you would be so kind…" Aizen spoke up, answering for Szayel.

"As you command, Kami-sama," Abisara answered, terminating the connection.

Aizen turned his attention towards the culprits' parents. Grimmjow was grinning unabashedly, Karin had a hand to her forehead, rubbing it in irritation, Orihime had the good grace to look chagrined and Ulquiorra's expression, if one could call it that, hadn't changed one iota.

"Do be so kind as to rein in your errant offspring," he ordered.

All four of them nodded in affirmation.

"And please, see that it does not happen again, or I shall take measures to show them myself what I think of chaos in my Empire," he said sweetly, his eyes as hard as burnished steel.

That elicited a very different set of responses, not only from the guilty parties' parents, but also from several of the others in attendance.

"Hai, Kami-sama," Ulquiorra was the only one to respond, but only because Karin kicked her mate when he opened his mouth.

"Damn it, who messed up?" Hana growled in annoyance. "I spent hours on these calculations!" She scowled at Ajuga, who defensively put up her hands and scowled right back at her.

"Hey, I didn't even get up to my tower before the alarm went off!"

They glared at each other for several minutes before a very loud, creaking noise interrupted them. Both girls froze and then looked cautiously at the tower they were currently standing near, but the noise didn't come again and the alarm died, much to Ajuga's relief.

"Bloody thing," Hana snapped, rubbing the back of her neck. "My poor ears are buzzing now."

"Yeah, so are mine," Ajuga agreed, then frowned and started to sniff the air. Her ears, which she'd held tight against her skull to protect her far more sensitive hearing, suddenly perked up and swivelled towards the tower.

"Ah, Hana-chan is it just me or is the buzzing getting louder?"

Diaemus appeared before them, a frown on his features, but for once, he wasn't scowling at them. Instead, he seemed focused on something in the distance.

The tower creaked again, and this time it sounded as if something metallic and heavy within it was bending. They looked at one another, as if to confirm that each of the others had heard the same thing.

Their original plan had been to start at different towers and run down the line, two of them setting off alarms while the third snuck past the Net at a different point, to prove that if they could do it, the enemy could as well. Before Ajuga could do anything more than put her hand on the door, the alarm had gone off. The sound had disoriented her as the alarms blasted her sensitive hearing at point-blank range. She had quickly retreated to the small clearing that the three of them had designated as a meeting point.

While Hana couldn't explain what they'd heard, she did give her two friends a moment of silence while their sharpened senses tried to hone in on the problem. The wind carried a whiff of something their way, something vaguely familiar to the black-haired, half Arrancar, something she hadn't scented for a very long time.

"Something's wrong," Ajuga declared, sniffing the air more intensely as she dashed forward. "This way…"

"Ajuga-chan, slow down," Hana called as she raced after her friend.

"Don't' you think it would be wise to alert the authorities first?" Diaemus suggested.

Ajuga didn't answer. She was already in full hunting mode. Nose twitching and ears straining to pick up anything that might be out of place, the girl also kept her eyes peeled for some clue as to her foe's identity. She was the first back to the tower that had been her original target, eyes narrowing as she studied the door. It seemed fine, but the scent was definitely stronger here. She racked her brain, trying to recall where she had smelled it before, but the answer eluded her, to her growing frustration.

She did know one thing and that was the scent she'd followed was much stronger on the other side of the door. Then the tower gave off yet another groan, as if something within it was under some great distress and buckling from unseen force. In addition, she thought she could smell burning metal, which in her mind was never a good sign.

Ajuga slowly opened the door and entered the room, then abruptly froze. Hana and Diaemus followed her in and almost tripped over her as they stared about with a mixture of shock and disbelief on their faces.

The scent finally registered with Ajuga and with the realization of what it was came a memory she had nearly forgotten. She could still taste the ichor in her mouth as the giant grasshoppers foolishly attempted to interrupt her hunt and dared to presume that she was their prey. She'd often smelled the same stench on her parents when they returned home from battle when she was younger and before the Defence Net went up to protect the Seireitei and its Districts.

What looked like a massive cockroach, one the size of an elephant, turned their way and let out a loud, resounding hiss. Several smaller insects appeared around its legs, reminding the three of pill bugs, albeit pill bugs the size of a cow.

"It's the Swarm…" Ajuga heard Hana whisper, more out of shock than any attempt to stay quiet.

Ajuga, for her part, could only nod in agreement. She had no doubt that the creatures before them were a part of it, given their race, size, and apparent hostility. Worse, these were clearly new and undocumented members of the flying horde.

 _Szay'_ _is going to wet his hakama when he learns of these things,_ Ajuga thought slightly amused.

The buzzing grew louder and, now that they were fully in the room, she could tell it came from the very large hole that something had dug in the middle of the floor. The Swarm had tunnelled under the Defence Net and come up in one of the Perimeter Breach Alarm Towers.

"We need to plug that hole before more come through," Hana declared. The noise was loud enough now for even her lesser hearing to make it out.

Ajuga snarled, dropped down on all fours and charged the creatures like the panther she resembled. The cockroach let out another loud hiss and the pill bug-like creatures rushed forward to meet her.

"Shit," Hana hissed as she drew her Zanpakuto and followed Ajuga into the growing fray.

"How very troublesome," Diaemus stated calmly.

Unlike the two girls, he did not join the fight against the smaller insects, but rather made for the tower's control panel. The cockroach moved to intercept him, but it was nowhere near as fast as he was, giving him ample time to hit the manual alarm, a feature from the time Science and Research Division staff members manned the now-automated towers. Once more, the alarm blared, pulling a pained noise from Ajuga as it once more assaulted her hearing.

Diaemus stepped to the side, letting the large creature crash into the wall and through it, tearing through the heavy sheet metal as if it were nothing more than wet paper. Cries of alarm met it from outside as the Shinigami responding to the first set of alarms, having not gotten the message from the Espada Claim Meeting that it had been 'fake,' got their first look at the thing.

"Diaemus, check the other towers we targeted! If we didn't trigger the alarms and they went off anyway, this might not be the only one they've infested!" Hana called out. "The Swarm could be pouring in through tunnels all over the area!"

The theory was sound and he was, by far, the fastest. He didn't bother responding and simply disappeared from sight.

"You pathetic rats!" Ajuga snarled, her claws tearing another chunk out of her target's armour.

The creature's exoskeleton was strong, but her claws were tougher and stronger. Still, it was the depth of the armour, not the strength of the stuff, that caused problems for her. It was far too strong for Hana's Zanpakuto so she sheathed the blade and quickly switched to her preferred method of fighting, one she had inherited from her mother: Kido.

Balls of fire erupted into the fray and the air became charged as bolts of lightning also flew from Hana's fingertips. The armour that protected the creatures also hindered them, making it almost impossible to defend themselves from the air, so across their back was where Ajuga remained. Through it all, the droning grew much, much louder. It was the sound of thousands of sets of insect wings approaching.

"We have got to find a way to collapse that tunnel!" Ajuga snarled.

The first of the locust like creatures was just starting to emerge from the tunnel, buzzing in excitement as they made their way towards the hole in the wall.

"The supports! They are already weakened, no doubt in an attempt to bring down the tower and destroy our warning system. A few good hits should bring it down," Hana declared.

Ajuga didn't argue, when it came to team strategy and tactics Hana was far better at it than she was. She much preferred to stalk her prey solo. Despite that, she was still a team player when it called for it. She had many fond memories of hunting larger and more dangerous prey in the forest with her father and he'd be disappointed in her if he knew she hadn't taken advantage of someone to help in this situation. Hana had always been the brains of the operation and Ajuga the muscle.

She manoeuvred the milling Swarm towards the heavily damaged pillars, letting their far more powerful and heavier bulks do the job for her. The tower creaked and groaned ominously. Hana was the first to retreat, doing her best to slow the Swarm down as they flew out of the hole in the ground and made for the one in the wall.

Once she knew Hana was safe, Ajuga retreated as well. Most of the pill bugs had been destroyed and now it was the normal member of the Swarm she was swatting. Their numbers were growing quickly and the room inside the tower dwindled. The structure truly began to groan now as the supports that held everything in place began to give way.

She darted for the nearest exit, not the large hole in the wall but rather the human-sized door they had first entered. Ajuga was just in time. Debris rained down around her as the tower's framework buckled. Now she went low instead of high, using the large flying locusts as a living shield for herself from the dangerous chucks of metal falling everywhere.

Several chased after her and smashed into the door frame. Their larger bulk were too big to fit through the smaller opening. She could see the Shinigami, formed up in ranks, hammering the larger hole with waves of Kido blasts and a few used their Shikai abilities, another reason she'd chosen her escape route carefully. She had just enough time to turn around before the structure completely collapsed, pushing out a wave of dust that had her covering her face and flattening her ears.

"Damn it," she cursed and coughed, then shook herself like an animal to try to get the dust out of her fur.

Ajuga was caked in dust and it tickled her sensitive nose, sending her into another sneezing fit. The gore that covered her from her opponents turned the dust almost muddy, making it that much more difficult to dislodge and caking it to her once, pristine white fur.

"Ajuga!"

Her mother's frantic cry caught her attention. Karin was by her daughter's side in an instant, enveloping her in a tight, if messy hug.

"Mama," she protested, trying to pry herself out of her mother's death grip. "You are embarrassing me," she complained.

"Indulge me," Karin insisted.

The few members of the Swarm that managed to escape the Shinigami's Kido bombardment went scattering, not towards the city as everyone expected, but towards the Defence Grid pillars.

"Stop them, quickly!" Nanao ordered her troops.

The Shinigami broke ranks, racing after the massive insects. Karin finally released her daughter and took up her own pursuit. Ajuga looked down briefly at the filth that covered her and then put it out of her mind and joined in the pursuit. It wasn't hard to forget, temporarily, her discomfort while caught up in the thrill of the hunt. It was going to be hell to try to get the guts out of her fur and hair later, but she had bigger things on her mind at the moment.

Ajuga picked her targets and tore them to shreds as she caught up to them. The Swarm's Locusts were far easier to kill than the strange pill bugs, since they had thinner carapaces. They also seemed to be completely focused on their goal and didn't even try to defend themselves as they flew towards their targets.

The Defence Grid slowly approached, the bright light of the Kido chain-link fence easily coming into view. Her eyes went to the next target, and she increased her speed. She was just about to make the leap to engage the creature when she caught a flash of blue and white and her target was sliced cleanly in half a second before she reached it.

"Papa!" she cried in frustration as she veered to avoid running into him. "That was my prey," she hissed in annoyance.

"Should have gotten to it faster than," Grimmjow smirked at her.

Ajuga huffed in annoyance and pouted. She changed her target and went after the next target, letting her frustration out on the creature. She may have puffed up just a little as her father praised her as he sped past her, intent on taking out another insect. Unlike her mother, her father had no problems letting her sharpen her talons on such pathetic prey.

They were almost to the nearest pillar. Out of the corner of her eye, Ajuga spotted a dark cloud to the West, already inside the fence.

"Papa, Mama!" she called, indicating the large group of creatures heading to the pillars, totally forgetting that she had been trying not to let her mother know she was still on the field.

"Shit!" Karin cursed, changing her course to intercept. "Go home Ajuga!" she ordered fiercely.

The Shinigami under her command veered off with her to intercept the Swarming mass of locusts. Karin was out of range before Ajuga could respond that there was no chance in Hell she was leaving the battle now and missing out on all of the fun. This was the largest engagement since the Defence Net went up and she was finally old enough and skilled enough to participate in the hunt. She did veer east, however.

 _Out of sight out of mind,_ she thought smugly. _And home is in this direction, in a roundabout way. Sort of. It's not like mother told me exactly_ when _I had to be home, or what path to take to get there._

Two more Locusts fell under her claws, but the rest of this group had reached one of the Defence Net pillars. Those members of the Swarm that had made it were doing their best to destroy it. Several were knocked into the Net and a good number more were pulled by instinct towards the light. The air quickly started to smell unpleasantly like charred bug.

For those using Kido or other forms of ranged attacks from their Zanpakuto the fight got a bit more intense. With the Swarm now trying to take out the pillars from the outside, they had to watch their own attacks least they damage that which they were desperately trying to protect. On the other side of the net, the sky was black with those headed towards the city.

The few bugs that were left attacking this pillar on the city side of the grid were quickly cleaned up. Once one pillar was secure, Ajuga moved East with the intent to check the rest of the pillars, in case any more of the furtive rats managed to sneak in undetected. As much as she wanted to hunt with her father, she didn't want her mother to know she had disobeyed her order to head back home. This was far too invigorating.

Several of the Shinigami that has been assigned in her direction followed her, clearly having the same idea. She smiled at the few she knew from her mother's Division, but otherwise ignored them. Their power was nothing compared to hers. They were merely Shinigami. _She_ was an Arrancar. They could never hope to rise to her level, at least as far as this sort of fight went. It was as if she was built for this kind of fighting, had been born for it and there was little ego in her own self-assessment. The number of insect corpses she left in her wake confirmed her strength.

 _I wish Papa could see this. He would be so proud of me,_ she thought as her claws shredded another locust like paper.

The last thing Karin had been expecting was an _actual_ reason for the alarm activations. She couldn’t help but to cringe. Szayel was going to be in for a rough time with Aizen when he found out that there was a serious reason for the blaring sirens.

 _And things have been going so well on that front too,_ she couldn’t help but to mentally sigh.

With the Defence Grid holding and the Realms holding steady, Aizen had been calmer. Almost no one had suffered at his hands since the Net had gone up. While there were the odd displays of displeasure now and then, those displays had been relatively mild altercations. They were nothing like what she had come to expect from the bastard. Somehow, Karin had a feeling that the peace and tranquility most people had been enjoying was about to evaporate.

While Nanao deployed their troops, Karin hesitated over making the call she had to make. She hoped that Szayel would have left the meeting already and Aizen wouldn’t hear about how the scientist and his son had inadvertently turned a real alarm off simply because Ajuga, Hana and Diaemus had been spotted by the premises, at least not until later. It was not incredibly wise to lie to Aizen and she had no doubt that the truth would be out very quickly if it wasn’t already. There was no way to convince the sheer number of people that would be writing reports over this incident to fudge the facts.

With a sigh, she called up Szayel.

“I am a little busy here, Karin-sama…” he complained over her headset, not even giving her time to speak.

“Busy with work or busy trying to hide?” she shot back, irritated at his tone and not above being a bit cruel about it.

She felt the bolt of fear he gave off from her statement rush down the Claim, followed quickly by annoyance. It was a mean thing to have said, but she was in a bad mood right now and his back talk just made her pissier and more vindictive.

“It looks like we got some new bugs for you to poke at.”

She felt her annoyance fade a bit as his overwhelming excitement at the prospect of new experiments zapped her.

“Make sure the specimens aren’t disturbed. I’ll send over a team right away to secure them for transport,” he ordered breathlessly.

“There are more important concerns right now than the corpses. It looks like the Swarm tunnelled in this time. They’re attacking the pillars. If we don’t want to have to replace the whole Defence Net, we are going to have to turn the grid off and retract the poles.”

“Doing that will leave us open for the rather large contingent heading towards the Net, and most of the force is out in the field right now,” he pointed out.

Karin felt that old, familiar, hopeless feeling, the tightness in her chest that she equated with being strangled slowly. Szayel was right; most of the Shinigami force was in the Living Realm performing their duties. There would be no way to recall them in time to help fight. Almost the entire Arrancar force was here, but as powerful as they were, there were simply far too many opponents on hand for the Espada to deal with.

“I hate catch-22s,” Karin complained under her breath.

The decision wasn’t hers to make either. She could order Szayel to bring the Grid down and he would have no choice but to obey. However, she didn’t have the authority to do so and, as many had learned the hard way, Aizen did not like people acting out of turn. The very last thing she needed was for him to decide to punish her for overstepping her authority the way he had many others, by rape. It would be just her luck to get pregnant and give him the very thing that he had been searching for, the last key he needed for total domination: an heir of Royal blood.

There were bigger fish to fry right now so she closed the line and concentrated on swatting the bugs currently trying to attack the pillars. So far, the Net held and as long as it did so, nothing on the other side of it mattered.

This was the first battle in which Hana was forced to participate. She had always figured that she would react to what occurred during a battle calmly and rationally, but all she felt right now was blind panic. Things were happening so quickly and there were so many enemies. She found herself stumbling over her Kido incantations, making desperate moves with her Zanpakuto and blocking rather than taking firm control of her actions, as she’d hoped she would. It wasn’t until the Swarm scattered and began going after the pillars with a single-minded purpose that she finally calmed down enough stop reacting and start planning her next attack.

The first thing she noticed was that Ajuga was missing. She felt overwhelming fear for her friend’s safety, and it wasn’t because Ajuga, like the rest of the troops, might end up dead. She was well aware that most Arrancar could count on their Hierro as a first line of defence and Ajuga was no exception. The holes were far too small for the beetles to get through and, as far as Hana knew, those were the only ones that were capable of seriously harming an Arrancar.

She desperately scanned for Ajuga’s familiar reiatsu and nearly sobbed in relief when she picked it up off to the East. If Ajuga had been in full ‘stalking mode’, Hana wouldn’t have had a glacier’s chance in hell of finding her. Hana rushed towards Ajuga’s position, desperately praying that her friend hadn’t gotten scratched due to carelessness or cockiness.

 _It would be just like her to let one of the damn things bite her to show off,_ Hana couldn’t help but to think with a mixture of annoyance and a little amusement.

She caught up to Ajuga only because her friend was stopping at each pillar to swat the bugs chewing on the poles. Fortunately, the Swarm’s locusts were similar to their smaller, more native cousins in that they were herbivores. Their mandibles lacked the strength to bite easily through the steel metal poles that held the grid up. It was a good thing too, because it was quickly looking like the infiltration had been part of a much larger invasion plan.

“Ajuga-chan!” Hana called out as she finally reached a pillar still crawling with locusts.

At least her friend wasn’t alone. Several Shinigami were busy attacking the Swarm as well. To Hana’s relief, the Locusts seemed to be solely focused on assaulting the pillars, rather than trying to defend themselves.

“Definitely a hive-like mind,” Hana grumbled as she caught up to her friend.

“Hana-chan,” Ajuga acknowledged her with a wide smile of excitement.

“Eww… good grief, Ajuga! You desperately need a bath. You reek and you’re covered in dirt and gore,” Hana complained, covering her nose and waving a hand in front of her face.

Only now did Ajuga seem to notice the state she was in and gave off a shudder of her own with a loudly proclaimed, ‘Yuck.’ The two girls weren’t idle as they spoke. With this pole secure, they headed towards the next, the few Shinigami traveling with their little band greeting Hana warmly, even though they were from different Divisions.

Hana recognized them as her mother’s troops from their armbands, even though she didn’t know their names. She was pleased to note that Ajuga’s presence didn’t seem to bother them in the least. Ajuga had won over most of the 5th Division when she was still a bright-eyed, far-too-adorable cub. The 5th division had collectively watched the Arrancar child grow up, since Ajuga was not the least bit shy at showing up in her mother’s office when boredom got the best of her.

The next Defence Breach Tower came into view and Ajuga paused, sniffing that way before suddenly disappearing from Hana’s senses completely, even though Ajuga was still right in front of her. The Shinigami in the group continued on towards the Defence Net Poles that were covered in the Swarm.

“Ajuga, what is it?” Hana asked worried.

“That tower is infested,” she replied, sniffing the air again. “These ones smell different though.”

Before Hana could ask that Ajuga elaborate, her friend was just gone, disappearing completely. With her reiatsu completely concealed, Hana couldn’t track her.

“Ajuga,” Hana called after her before letting out a string of foul curses she had learned from Grimmjow, although she would never let her mother or her surrogate aunt ever know she knew them and used them, let alone where she had learned them. She didn’t actually wish any injury on Grimmjow.

Hana followed as best she could and made for the tower. It appeared completely normal from the outside. She heard no buzzing, nor were there any other sounds or indications that this tower, like the last, was under attack.

By the time Hana made it to the door, she was shocked to discover that it was still locked. For a brief moment she feared Ajuga had already gone in and secured the door behind her, but she was proven wrong when a hand landed on her shoulder. She nearly screamed in terror but managed to clamp down on it before she could give her position away to any enemies that might be nearby.

“Ajuga!” she hissed angrily.

“Shhh!”

Ajuga scowled at her, and then whispered, “You never were any good at hunting.”

Both girls pressed their ears against the door and listened intently. Hana could hear voices, but she couldn’t make out the words. There was something about them, though, that tugged at her memory. She found that strange because she hadn’t had many encounters with the Swarm prior to today, let alone ones that… could…talk…

Hana’s brain began putting two and two together. If the Swarm itself had a hive-mind, then something had to be controlling it, issuing orders to the Swarm’s various parts. That something also had to be close enough to issue those orders, yet far enough away or concealed well enough to protect the ones giving the orders from attack, thereby interrupting the lines of communication.

Pulling away from the door, Hana suddenly knew what she and Ajuga would find behind it. From Ajuga’s rapidly widening smile and gleefully vicious grin, Hana could guess that Ajuga realized it as well.


	2. Defense Net Down

Karin was getting frustrated. The Swarm had compromised several of the towers and Locusts covered a large number of the silver poles, doing their best to bring them, and the Net, down. To add another ton of trouble to the situation, the rest of the Swarm milled about on the other side of the Net. They hovered there, waiting, not flying into it as they had for the last five years. Karin did not like what that implied and she had a strong suspicion that she was not the only one who had noticed.

 _Please, please tell me Ajuga went home without a fight,_ she silently pleaded as her fist smashed through the carapace of another Locust. _If the Swarm is behaving intelligently than there must be a General nearby._

Karin was seriously worried about Ajuga, even if her daughter’s Heirro was infinitely stronger than her own human skin, even when infused with reiatsu. One taste of her blood was all it would take for the Swarm to learn of Ajuga’s heritage and make her a target. It was bad enough they knew of Karin’s heritage, but leaving the battlefield wasn’t an option. She had a job to do and if she refused, her actions would attract Aizen’s attention, something the very universe could not afford to let happen.

She was also human, just one among many and she looked no different from the average Shinigami. Ajuga’s unique looks, on the other hand, would be much easier to spot in a crowd and thus made her an easier target. Ajuga, like her father, was not a very caution fighter and liked to show off on more than several occasions.

An axe kick smashed the head open of another Locust and she could feel duelling streams of enthusiasm racing through both of her Claims: one from her mate, who was thoroughly enjoying the battle, and the other from Szayel, his excitement tempered with a decent amount of fear. Karin shared that fear. She hoped that Aizen would overlook the fact they’d turned off warning system during a real emergency, not one triggered by Ajuga, Hana and Diaemus as they had first assumed it was.

 _Aizen was the one who told them to turn it off. If we could just find one of the Generals and capture it, maybe we could finally learn something more about the Swarm, like where they come from,_ she wished.

Every spring, the Swarm’s attacks finally let up, Aizen sent out his Arrancar to try and find their nesting grounds, and every spring, the hunters failed to come back with any new information. Grimmjow had stumbled across the portal bugs once while they were busy setting up the gateway for the latest invasion, but no one had, as of yet, seen how the portal bugs got into Soul Society themselves, nor were they able to determine if the Swarm had a base here. Szayel’s current theory went that the Scarabs retreated into hiding somewhere in the Soul Society itself when not in use. Unfortunately, they had yet to find a way to track and hunt the Scarabs. That was another issue: the Portal Scarabs had so little reiatsu that a normal bug almost had more. An attempt to track one via their energy was just as likely to net the pursuer a ladybug or a grasshopper.

Karin swatted the last Locust on the pole and took a moment to check in with Szayel, the eyes and ears of every battle. The main control room in his Science and Research Building connected to sensors and cameras placed all over the Seireitei, giving him a bird’s-eye view of the world around them.

“Your area is clean, Karin-sama,” Szayel answered her over the wrist com.

Karin had gotten to know the scientist very well over the years. The Claim helped, but she had learned to read him via body language and verbal cues as well. Thus, she could hear the silent ‘but’ attached to his sentence, a ‘but’ that Szayel had no desire to share with her but was going to anyway because he had no choice in the matter.

“What is it?” she demanded when he still hesitated.

Before he could answer, Karin watched in horror as the Net flickered and then collapsed. For a moment, there was stunned silence. Then everyone reacted in a blind panic, at least until Karin snapped her orders out and got her people moving in an orderly fashion back towards the area where the Swarm hovered behind the Defence Net.

“Szayel, what the hell is going on? Why is the Net down?” Karin demanded as she raced with her Division back towards the flashes of a much larger and far more dangerous battle. From where she was, she could just make out the large beetles as they lumbered forward and could easily see the black cloud as the flying portion of the Swarm approached.

Szayel didn’t answer, not because he was deliberately ignoring her, but because a more immediate threat had grabbed his attention. As much as Karin wanted an answer, and could have used the Claim to force him to answer her, she understood that sometimes priorities shifted in mid-fight.

There had been time to recall some of the people from their missions in the Living World, but not that many. As Karin arrived at the fringes of the massive air and land battle, she directed her un-Seated troops to remain there to pick off the Locusts that made it past the devastating attacks of those far more powerful than they were.

With such a mass of creatures and in such a desperate situation, almost everyone who had a Bankai was using it. She caught sight of the swirling, pink storm of Byakuya’s Senbonzakura and could hear the roar of Zabimaru from somewhere off in the distance. That meant that Szayel had secured the twins within the Science and Research Division’s walls, leaving Renji free to fight. The most devastated and blocked-in area belonged to Toshiro and Harribel. Massive waves of water drenched the field, chased by a rolling sheet of ice that froze the water and any members of the Swarm touching or trapped within it.

Harribel was not the only Arrancar in her released form. In fact, the only one Karin caught sight of who remained in his sealed state was Coyote Starrk. Starrk seldom released his Resurrección simply because the crushing power of his reiatsu in combat would devastate as much of their army as it did the Swarm. This was why Ulquiorra never went into his second form. Orihime had described it to her, but Karin had yet to witness it and wasn’t sure she wanted to do so.

Five blades of pure blue energy tore a swath through the thick cloud of Locusts. A beetle let out a dying screech as one of the blades hit it dead on and cut deeply into its exoskeleton. Karin let out a smirk and let her body relax for a moment as another body pressed insistently against hers. Hands snaked around and grabbed a breast each before giving them a soft squeeze and hot breath ghosted across her neck.

“You better not be getting bug guts all over my back.” Her voice was cold, but their mutual Claim conveyed her love and pleasure to the creature rubbing himself against her.

“What you going to do about it if I am?” Grimmjow purred into her ear.

“Tell Aizen you were looking at his wife when impure intentions,” she threatened good-naturedly.

“Like he would believe that,” Grimmjow scoffed.

“True,” she agreed. “But if you don’t get back to swatting flies you’ll be sleeping on the porch tonight.”

Grimmjow let out a growl and rubbed his body more firmly against hers once more before breaking away and disappearing into the buzzing black cloud, leaving a trail of devastation in his wake. Karin smirked and sent a wave of love towards him through their connection. A moment later, he returned a blast of pure lust to her and her smirk turned into a smile of appreciation as five more blades of blue energy ripped through the Swarm.

Karin’s thoughts turned back to the mêlée at hand. The creatures that made it past their most powerful warriors’ devastating attacks, and many did thanks to the sheer number of them, didn’t seem to be flying towards the city. Instead, the survivors appeared to divide and headed in two separate directions as if trying to encircle them.

No, Karin realized to her horror as she correctly interpreted their strategy. They weren’t trying to surround the city. They were attacking the silver poles that made up the backbone of the Net.

“Szayel, they’re targeting the Defence Net! They are attacking the poles!” Karin called frantically into her com.

The young woman felt the jolt of his shock and fear hit her before he quickly brought it under control. She watched as the poles started their decent into the safety of the ground. She was so distracted that she didn’t see a stray stream of acid spewed by one of the beetles on the ground until it was too late to try to change direction to avoid it. A streak of white flashed to her right and her body jerked violently to the side as someone yanked her towards them. The corrosive liquid filled the space she’d just occupied. If Jushiro had not pulled her out of the way by her arm, the acid would have dissolved her. As it was the stream passed within inches of her torso, too close for comfort.

“Karin?”

He looked her up and down worriedly as she swore with a vengeance, angry with herself. She’d picked up most of the words from her mate over the years, with Tatsuki contributing a few as well.

“Sorry, thanks for the rescue. I should have been paying attention.”

Karin regained her footing and covered their backs with a burst of Kido lightning, sending several Locusts smoking to the ground.

The poles had retreated into their resting places, but the beetles seemed determined to destroy them. The insects began digging them up and letting their acid flow down into the subterranean concrete supports once the hole was cracked open, leaving the poles to dissolve in the acid-filled chambers. Meanwhile, the Locusts sacrificed their own bodies to defend the beetles. The front line was spreading too quickly, even though more and more people joined the battle as word spread of the invasion and more Shinigami returned from their earth side missions.

Karin’s world narrowed down to her and the opponents in front of her, all the while making sure her reiatsu encased her body like a shield. A single scratch and taste of her blood would let the Swarm know where she was and she was not counting on the Generals suddenly losing interest in her over the last five years. They seemed intent on getting their claws on her and putting her on the throne. Once there, she was as good as a sacrificial lamb. It would only take fraction of Aizen’s power to follow her to the King’s Palace. He had enough strength to send her, her mate, and all of her friends to their bellies with a mere smile. She’d seen it happen to Szayel and he’d barely been able to breathe, actually entering the early stages of asphyxiation before Aizen had relented.

No, she had no illusions about her ability to remain on the Throne if the Swarm captured her. Her stay there wouldn’t be long enough to matter; such was the difference between her power and the usurper’s.

It was late evening before the battle finally ended. They’d crushed the last Locust and the hastily put-together clean-up teams scoured the area for any stragglers. None of them had made it to the city, but Karin had been correct. The Seireitei and its Districts weren’t the Swarm’s objective. This time, they’d severely damaged a large portion of the Defence Net. With so many poles now nothing more than melted piles of corroded metal swimming in pits of acid, the Net was officially offline. Szayel had yet to find a good way to counter the acid and each pole required installation at very specific locations for the Net to work. In order to make repairs, the defenders would have to find a way to neutralize the acid, rip up the damaged poles and plant new ones, or they would have to build an entirely new type of Net. Neither of those options offered a quick or easy fix and, at best, would take months. Somehow, Karin doubted the Swarm would let them get another protective barrier up without one hell of a fight and casualties that they couldn’t afford right now.

It was so late when the last bug expired that Aizen didn’t bother calling for a meeting right away. Instead, he allowed them all a four-hour break to clean up and catch a quick nap. It wasn’t much, but Karin had learned not to be picky when it came to downtime. She had survived motherhood. She had survived running a Division that was so far behind she swore some of the paperwork was from last year. She had learned how to function on catnaps for months at a time. She’d finally delegated the last bit of work to those soldiers that had returned from field duty late and thus had missed most of the battle. They had the most energy to spare for mop-up duties and patrol work, finally allowing Karin a moment to think.

Her first thoughts went to Ajuga and Hana. Were the girls safe, and more importantly, was Ajuga unscathed? Karin hadn’t seen the Swarm give any indication that it had detected Royal Blood, no sudden changes in their swarming behaviour like what had happened the first time a damn Locust had scratched her. Granted, as Grimmjow had pointed out to her before, Ajuga’s Heirro was too strong for the damn things to bite through, at least not without some serious effort.

“Szayel, are you still in the monitoring room?” Karin asked over her wrist link as she started walking back towards Jushiro’s estate, trying to cast her vision ahead to find the girls. She had only asked the question as a courtesy; it would take a Claim-induced order, or one from Aizen, to get him away from the monitors.

“Yes, Karin-sama, what do you want?” Szayel’s voice came over the com.

“Where is Ajuga?” she demanded.

Silence met her question, but it didn’t bother her, at least not at first. He would need to call up Ajuga’s tracking bracelet on the monitor and he no doubt had a large number of other programs running. She wouldn’t have given much thought to the delay if not for the slowly rising panic she was getting from him.

“Um, Karin-sama...” he hesitated.

“What is it?” she barked, inadvertently clamping down on the Claim in her distress and forcing him to answer.

“Her bracelet is apparently here,” he answered weakly.

“What?” Karin snapped, clamping down on the Claim even more in sudden distress.

“She must have left it here during her last examination!” Szayel gasped out.

Karin realized that she was hurting him and forced herself to relax the Claim. Ajuga had several tests run yesterday, as had Diaemus and the twins. It was part of a monthly monitoring program the Espada set up when they were children. Karin recalled that a number of her late father’s clients had forgotten things at their clinic when her father had to run tests that required the patients to remove their jewellery. In addition, this wasn’t the first time Ajuga neglected to put her tracking bracelet back on.

Karin found a relatively comfortable spot and forced herself to sit down. Jinzen was a wonderful meditative technique, even if she didn’t have a Zanpakuto with which she could communicate. It let her focus her ‘sight’ and she knew her daughter’s reiatsu signature as well as she knew her own and her mate’s. Speaking of her mate, she felt and saw him arrive. She doubted her brief spike of distress had summoned him to her, but rather the overwhelming horniness that gripped him after every battle. He still wore his Resurrección form.

She felt him pull her body flush against his and nuzzle her neck. She ignored him the best she could until she finally tracked down Ajuga, who appeared to be beside Hana and Diaemus. The three of them had nearly reached the Science and Research Building. As much as she wanted to rush over and check on them, their reiatsu signatures only showed fatigue and she had to contend with a very persistent male, one who wanted her attention very much. She would have to appease her mate first or she would get nowhere. She seldom saw him in his Resurrección, as very few battles required him to use it. He had only resorted to it this battle for the more devastating, area wide attacks his Resurrección offered to help thin the thick ranks of the Swarm. It was really the only reason most of the Arrancar used them.

“Ajuga?” Grimmjow asked with a purr, although Karin did catch the slightest hint of concern in his voice.

“At Szayel’s, with the other two,” she answered, letting herself fully relax against him.

“Then there is no need to worry about them,” he whispered seductively in her ear, sending a chill up her spine.

His hands made short work of her clothing and his feet spread her uniform around a bit before he bore her to the ground. The small part of her brain that was still capable of rational thought as her mate mauled her grimaced and silently complained that the white clothing was going to get horribly soiled, even though it was already soaked in dried sweat and had a lot of ichor stains from the earlier battle.

She definitely approved of this form. With his mask fragments reformed into something resembling a crown, his face was completely clear to nuzzle her, to his so-called absent heart’s delight. Damn, but he was good at nuzzling too. Her hands ran through his thick mane of hair before curling back about and stroking the soft fur around his ears. Said ears twitched irritably as her fingers brushed the finer hairs and tickled them.

His teeth were much sharper in this form, being actual fangs, but not a scratch was left on her skin as he nipped, licked, and kissed his way down her body, pausing only to give each breast the attention it deserved. Somehow, the feel of her nipples being slid about between those fangs was far hotter. Nevertheless, it wasn’t nearly as good as when his mouth finished its journey south and he gave the little bundle of nerves the same treatment.

Karin couldn’t help but to gasp, pant, moan, cry, and squirm in pure pleasure as his mouth prepared her in a way she had never imagined. She attributed the mind-blowing sensation to the roughness of his tongue in this form. It wasn’t as raspy as a normal cat’s tongue would be, but it was definitely more stimulating than that of a human male, or so she imagined. She made a mental note to make him take this form more often when they decided to go for a romp. Now she knew why Orihime always went crazy when she talked about having sex with Ulquiorra in his Resurrección. They had only mated in this form once when he’d given in to her request to see it and she had taken the lead that time.

She let out a little whimper of protest when her Mate pulled his head away, a whimper that turned into a moan when he licked his lips slowly before kissing his way back up her body. His mouth tasted slightly of her as his tongue delved into her mouth and stroked hers. His mouth caught another of her moans as he entered her, seemingly larger in this form, but not painfully so. The stimulation nearly made her convulse and she didn’t want this to end too soon.

She forced herself to focus as his hips began to move, she allowed her reiatsu to slide alongside his, stroking parts of his very soul that no other could see or touch. Grimmjow let out a growl of pure lust and his entire body shivered against hers. When their final mutual climax came, it took a few minutes before she realized they had even finished, her entire body positively thrummed with pleasure. It left both of them panting from the exertion and all she wanted to do was remain curled up against him in complete contentment. For a few minutes, she was even able to do so, but all too soon her previous worry over her daughter overcame her desire to drowse in her mate’s arms.

“We should check on the kids,” she stated softly.

Grimmjow gave a grunt of agreement and slowly untangled their bodies. It was only when he placed his sheathed blade into his sash that she realized he’d returned to normal and it was only when she tried to pull her own clothing on that she realized they were splattered with the blood of her enemies and the fluids of their wild sex. She scowled at it in disgust before leaving them on the ground and snatching Grimmjow’s jacket from his hands before he could pull it on.

She always did wonder where the Espadas’ clothing went when they changed forms. She would have to ask Szayel about it one day and get him to explain it in plain terms, assuming even he knew the answer. Wherever their clothing went, at least it remained clean while it was there. Since Grimmjow had fought most of the battle in his Resurrección, his clothes were irritatingly spotless. As if he could read her thoughts, he turned and gave her a smirk and a satisfied wink. In turn, she narrowed her eyes.

“Let’s go,” Karin ordered.

She pulled his jacket on, leaving her gore-soaked clothing behind and doing her best not to think about the fact that her mate’s jacket was the only stitch of clothing she had on. In addition, she tried not to think about the fact that it barely fell past her ass. As long as she didn’t bend over, she should be fine. Besides, this late at night, and after such a long, exhausting battle, she doubted there would be a large number of people walking around to offend.


	3. General

It was late, or early depending on which way one wanted to look at it. The battle officially ended at 01:32 and it was 04:02 now. Szayel was spent, both from coordinating the battle and from the shock of emotional stress, which hadn’t subsided. His chest was killing him from the combination of tension and the acid reflex that went with it. If Ajuga, Hana and Diaemus hadn’t been at one of the towers to reactivate the alarms, the Net would have been down and the Swarm on them before they could have mobilized at all. He had never considered the Swarm might tunnel under the Net; none of the Swarm’s previous incarnations included tunnelling or burrowing insects before.

He’d ordered his staff to excavate at least one body each of the two new Swarm species from the debris of the collapsed tower. Most of the smaller, pill bug-like insect bodies were in transit to the Science Division, but the larger creature that resembled a cockroach would require more effort to move thanks to its massive size and weight.

A search of the other towers showed no sign of these two new creatures. The holes they left behind, however, told a different story. While they’d retreated for now, the size and depth of the tunnels was something to behold. With this new threat, Szayel would have to devise a new method of defence. With these new troops, the Swarm could tunnel anywhere, coming up in the middle of the city if they desired.

Szayel had put together, a little too quickly for his liking, two theories about the presence of the heretofore-unknown tunnelling bugs. The fact they’d never been seen before gave rise to the first theory, that the Swarm had co-opted them from the wild in their efforts to find a better way to get around the Defence Net, a tactic that had worked beautifully, to Szayel’s dismay. His second theory was that the Swarm had bred the pill bug to enable an attack on the Net. He did have his doubts about the second theory; it took a great deal of time to create and breed complex organisms of such a size. Five years wasn’t nearly enough time for something like that to evolve in order to meet such a specific need, and Szayel was more convinced that the Swarm coerced the creatures into helping. He would know more when he got to study and catalogue the new specimens.

When Aizen’s orders delaying the meeting arrived, he felt a small amount of relief. He’d hoped for a bit of rest. Then he’d worried that the delay was so that Aizen could have a private chat with him about turning a real alarm off, even though the order had come from Aizen himself. After two hours with no Aizen on his doorstep, he relaxed a little, but not too much. It wouldn’t be the first time Aizen decided to punish him in front of the others.

 _At least the children are in bed with their mother,_ he thought with relief.

He had sent his family to bed an hour ago, although he doubted his son or mate was sleeping. The first was probably typing away on a tablet, working out the designs for a simple, yet effective, vibration detector that his staff could plant into the ground to detect any more tunnelling. The latter would be watching their children and making sure the room remained secure. In fact, their living quarters were better protected than Aizen’s own chambers. Szayel had made sure there were enough layers of security between his family’s private rooms that even Aizen would need a few minutes to break into them. The delay would give Szayel time to get there so that he might try to plead for their safety. Aizen had yet to hurt any of the children, but that didn’t mean that he might not if ‘Kami’ proved angry enough.

As irritating as he found Abarai Renji, the muscle-head had brought up a valid point the day that Aizen decided to use Vindula to threaten her father, over that blasted Quincy break-in. He wasn’t willing to risk his children on an assumption that ‘Kami’ would follow his own rules.

Szayel was so distracted between fretting over Aizen’s displeasure and analyzing the data that that day’s battle generated that he missed the very creature he feared walking into the control room until a hand fell upon his shoulder. He spun about, but the tongue-lashing he had planned to give to the fool for interrupting his work quickly died before the first word was even finished.

“Kami-sama,” he bowed deeply. “What can I do for you?”

He was actually proud that his voice only stuttered slightly.

“What have you learned about these new creatures?” Aizen asked, stepping beside him and easily pulling up the screen that had what little information they had collected so far.

Szayel felt himself relax a bit, but only a bit. Talking about research was a soothing balm for his emotions and it wasn’t unlike Aizen to be interested in new and interesting things. After all, Kami-sama had a superb understanding of most of the sciences.

“I have not had much time to study these new creatures. We’re gathering the specimens now. My staff managed to extract the pill bug like creatures, one of which I have temporarily labelled as Specimen S5. The cockroach, or Specimen S6, is still half-buried and very heavy. Getting it back to the lab will take time and resources, which I’m utilizing now to make sure we’ve no ‘lurkers’ that could cause more damage. I am sure you will agree to the current staff deployments,” he pulled up the screen showing said allocations.

Aizen glanced at the screen and gave a small nod of his head in agreement and Szayel let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“This is the first time we have seen the Swarm include insects that exhibit tunnelling behaviour, I trust plans are being made to counter this new move of theirs?”

“Yes, Abisara is working on a device as we speak, despite having been sent to bed,” Szayel couldn’t help the pride that touched his voice and the small smile that touched his lips as he thought proudly about his son. “He wanted to try to help, so I gave him something to keep him busy.”

“Yes, about your son…”

The prideful feeling in Szayel’s chest drained away and fear quickly took its place.

“He is turning out to be a rather sharp child, isn’t he?”

“He has a thing for circuitry, but that is about all,” Szayel interjected. “He has shown no interest or aptitude for anything else as of yet.”

If Aizen feared that Abisara was becoming as intelligent as his father was, there was a good chance his son would face a future similar to that of his sire, one full of fear and pain as Aizen made certain that he understood his place in the hierarchy of things.

He could not, would not, allow that to happen to his son.

The glare Aizen sent him for his interruption caused that small pain that had been riding in his chest for hours to flare up so it felt like there was a spike shoved through his chest. He was honestly a little surprised Karin hadn’t come to investigate yet. Given what he knew of Grimmjow’s character, she was probably far too distracted by the usual after-battle activities most Arrancar preferred to enjoy to notice his fluctuating emotions.

“My apologies, Aizen-sama,” he bowed deeply.

“Are you lying to me Szayel?” Aizen questioned pleasantly.

“No, of course not,” he stammered out quickly.

“Shall I summon your son and test his intelligence, to see whether or not you are deliberately playing down his potential to me? Earlier you couldn’t wait to brag about how advanced your children are.”

“I… I’ve already sent them to bed.”

“And yet you just told me you suspect he is still awake. Has it been so long since our last session that you actually _miss_ my punishments and as such are now seeking new ways to incur my wrath?”

“No!” the Seventh nearly cried in desperate denial. “It’s just…” he struggled vainly for an appropriate excuse and came up with nothing that wouldn’t sentence him to another round in that torture chamber below Aizen’s palace, despite the agreement between Aizen and Karin that all punishments were to be carried out by her.

This time he heard the door open and close and the sound of three pairs of feet striking the floor tiles.

“Szay, we brought a gift for you!” Ajuga’s cheerful voice broke the tension. “Oh! Evening, Kami-sama,” Ajuga greeted Aizen flippantly.

Both men turned their attention to the three newcomers. Unlike Ajuga, Hana and Diaemus greeted Aizen far more formally and properly.

“Ajuga, shouldn’t you be at home?” Szayel asked worriedly.

“Yeah, but we thought you might like to see the present we got you first,” Ajuga smirked. “You are going to go absolutely insane when you see what we dragged in.” Her smirk widened and, at that moment, she resembled Grimmjow a little too much for Szayel’s already rattled nerves.

“Ajuga, please get to the point,” Aizen ordered and his tone indicated he wasn’t in any mood for games or dissembling.

“You’re no fun,” she stuck her tongue out at him and pouted. “Alright, fine, Diaemus-kun, if you would be so kind please,” she turned her attention to the only male in their little band.

Without a word, Diaemus tossed the large, tightly wrapped bundle he had draped over his shoulder onto the ground. It appeared almost human-shaped but it made a strange noise when it hit the ground. Whatever was in it definitely wasn’t made of flesh.

Ajuga stood proudly over the bagged thing before bending down and pulling the canvas back to reveal a black carapace. Szayel felt excitement well up in him, followed quickly by a shot of fear, which quickly turned into relief and back to intense interest when he realized the thing was dead and not likely to reveal anything about Karin and her bloodline in front of Aizen. The fact it was dead was almost a pity, as he would have loved to interrogate and study a live one, but this was, honestly, for the best.

“Sorry, Szay, we tried to take it alive, but it gashed out its own throat before we could stop it,” Hana apologized with a short bow.

“Where did you find it?” Aizen asked, now intrigued by the find.

“We detected it in one of the Early Warning Towers. I caught its scent as we were clearing the poles of Locusts,” Ajuga answered. “There were three of them but the other two managed to escape down the tunnel they had dug to get in and collapsed it behind them,” Ajuga scowled in annoyance.

Szayel knew she absolutely hated it when prey escaped her, and it didn’t happen very often. Grimmjow had trained his daughter to hunt in a very efficient manner. Letting a target slip away induced the same response in the young girl as it did in her father, but with less swearing, since Ajuga was still fond of her rear and Karin had no problems reminded her daughter what she thought of such language. Szayel knew, from humiliating personal experience, that when Karin decided to tan someone’s hide, she did a thorough job of it.

“This is wonderful, Ajuga,” Szayel praised her. “Perhaps now we can learn how these Generals control the Swarm and, eventually, I may even be able to find a way to break that control, or even initiate a control of my own!”

He could learn so much from these creatures! Unlike the ones Grimmjow had massacred, this one was still in good shape. There was little damage to the specimen, other than the slit throat and more importantly, no damage to the head or brain. Of course, for all he knew, they controlled the Swarm with pheromones instead of telepathy or some other mental abilities. Now he had the chance to find out.

“The meeting is in an hour, Szayel. Do not be late.”

Aizen’s warning broke the Espada out of his discovery-induced glee and reminded him that he had guests he needed to keep entertained.

“Of course, Kami-sama! I will see to it this specimen is catalogued properly, and then I’ll be on my way,” he assured Aizen. The source of his fear took another long look at the body at Ajuga’s feet, turned on his heel and left without further commentary.

That suited Szayel just fine.

Exhilaration replaced any fear he’d been holding onto earlier at the prospect of studying, not one, not two, but _three_ new Swarm specimens. Oh, he could just imagine all of the secrets these creatures could spill, just waiting to be unravelled! Even distracted, he could tell that Aizen also wanted to know what they could learn from the dead General. In addition, Ajuga’s fortuitous arrival with her dead prize had diverted Aizen’s interest and quelled his antagonism towards Szayel. Once again, her perfect sense of timing saved his hide. The girl had a knack for doing so and he suspected that maybe, just maybe, Aizen’s gentle demeanour no longer fooled Ajuga. It wasn’t as if the adults didn’t _try_ to curb their dislike.. none of them wanted to find out what Aizen would do to them, or their children, if he ever suspected that they were whispering words of sedition in their children’s ears in private. Therefore, if Ajuga had any inkling of Aizen’s true nature it was because she had worked it out herself, not because any of them had dared to tell her or taught it to her.

“We should get going too” Hana sighed. “Our parents, or more accurately, our mothers, will start having conniption fits if we don’t get home.”

“Hmm, yes, of course,” Szayel noted, waving his hand absently at them and signalling to a few researchers hovering in the doorway to fetch a lab cart. The kids left, no doubt to return home to semi-hysterical mothers and, with the exception of Hana, proud fathers.

The way things were going, it was going to be some time before he would be getting any sleep, but that was fine. He was used to going for days without slumber, especially if he was working on a particularly important project. Fortunately, he had a mate trained to care for a scientist caught up in research, and to his delight, he hadn’t even been the one to instruct her. Nemu was far more useful than his many fraccion had ever been. The only downside to her was that eating her wouldn’t heal him. Then again, unlike his fraccion, she wasn’t expendable.

Unfortunately, ‘Kami’s’ reminder about the meeting meant that Aizen expected Szayel to attend and he had best not get engrossed in dealing with the new specimens just yet if he didn’t want another trip to the basement of Kami’s Palace. He also didn’t want a repeat of the public humiliation he’d received at Karin’s hands years ago, when they had been struggling to get the Defence Net up and running.

 _At least it doesn’t seem like I or my son will be blamed for turning that alarm off,_ he thought in relief. He could only hope his good luck held for a while.


	4. Golden Chain

It had been five years since the last battle, so when the alarm went off Tatsuki and Rangiku stared first at each other, and then at Tesra in shock. Tatsuki had moved first, grabbing her katana. Tesra was right behind her but Rangiku hesitated. True, Nnoitra had never rescinded his permission for her to join in the battles, but it had been some time since the last one and she didn’t know if he would remember that Aizen’s command for each ‘pet’ to fight alongside their ‘master’ still stood.

After a moment of hesitation, she had removed the chain attached to her anklet and had followed the other two out to do some damage to the Swarm. Haineko cackled gleefully at _finally_ being set free and even Rangiku had a smile as she sliced though the damn locusts. It wasn’t until the cloud of insects thinned and the battle wound down that Nnoitra found her and showed her just how riled up the return to combat made him.

Things had been going much more smoothly between them for some time now. He still had the odd relapse, usually when a large quantity of alcohol was involved, but those ‘relapses’ only ended in rough sex. It wasn’t the violent sort of sex he’d first used on her either and she couldn’t recall the last time he‘d beat her. As always, he apologized for losing his temper, when it wasn’t her fault he was upset.

“Enough of the mournful sighing” Tatsuki grumbled in annoyance. “Do you want me to hit you or not?” she demanded.

“Hmm, oh, yes, please do,” she replied and offered her only constant female companion a smile. She was damn lucky she had even that and Rangiku knew it.

Tatsuki nodded and slapped another card down on the table. Rangiku picked it up and looked at it before sighing and dropping her three cards down, not caring how they landed.

“Tesra?” Tatsuki asked her mate, giving him a seductive smile.

“I will pass, thank you,” Tesra answered.

Tesra and Tatsuki. It was an odd pairing if Rangiku ever saw one. They weren’t a couple she would have ever guessed would have come about. If Tatsuki hadn’t shared them with her, she also wouldn’t have imagined the details regarding _how_ it had come about either. She wished she could have been there to see the look on Tesra’s face when Tatsuki had straight up asked him to Claim her while she’d still, technically speaking, had been Ulquiorra’s property. Despite this, they were clearly meant for each other and Tesra treated his human mate with all the devotion a man should.

Rangiku was happy for them, she really was, but at times watching them brought about a large bout of depression. Unless Nnoitra grew tired of her, an unlikely prospect given how often and with the amount of enthusiasm that he took her, she was stuck with him for the rest of her foreseeable life. True, he was becoming less pigheaded, but he was still chauvinistic. After fifteen years, she had almost forgotten what it felt like to be a free spirit floating from party to party. Now she was lucky to get even a glass of sake once a month.

Then again, she also wasn’t waking up in her Taichou’s office, slaged out on the couch with a hangover, her head aching and her mouth tasting like a squirrel had crawled into it and promptly died.

“Alright, flip ’em over folks. The house has eighteen. Rangiku?” Tatsuki asked, breaking the ex-Shinigami out of her musings about her former life.

“Twenty-four,” she sighed, flipping her three cards over so her companions could see them.

“Tesra?”

“Twenty,” he answered with a small smile, flipping his own two cards over to reveal a pair of kings.

With the Defence Net down, and with such a large breach, there was no way to determine how many Locusts could still be hiding in the shadows. As such, Nnoitra ordered Tesra to guard her. Where Tesra went, Tatsuki followed. This led to the three of them playing blackjack, one of the many card games Tatsuki had taught them a few years ago when Aizen sent Nnoitra and Tesra out on the annual, and fruitless, Spring Bug-Base Hunt.

Tesra had offered to let Tatsuki go with him, but she had declined when she found out Nnoitra didn’t plan on bringing Rangiku, and instead had remained behind to keep the housebound woman company. Rangiku had learned a lot of interesting card games from her human friend over those few weeks. Nnoitra had returned during one game and had demanded they teach him how to play. Now he held the occasional Poker Night with several other Arrancar, sometimes even going other places, which allowed Rangiku to get out of the house. Yammy was one of the players and he occasionally hosted the rotating party at the Kuchiki Estate. Rangiku actually got to tag along, to see for herself how Byakuya was doing, and explore the fabled Kuchiki gardens. Her outings there were bittersweet; as much as she desperately needed a break from her own prison it hurt to see such a powerful man reduced to being the Tenth’s silent plaything, even if he showed no distress. From what she had seen of the Noble, little had changed for him since their defeat and enslavement.

“How long do you think the meeting is going to last?” Tatsuki questioned her mate with a yawn.

Tatsuki’s question, once again, broke her out of her rambling thoughts. It had been a long day for them all and the sky was starting to lighten on the Eastern horizon.

“Aizen-kami’s meetings frequently last for many hours,” he answered.

Rangiku was exhausted as well. It had been a long time since she had pulled an all-nighter and Nnoitra had used the four hours between the battle and the meeting to have an hour-long shower, where they’d spent less time washing and more time having sex, followed by even more sex afterwards. She hadn’t seen him that horny in a long while. The battle and frantic response to the crises of having the Defence Net collapse had stirred both his blood and his instincts.

“Do you think he’ll kill us if we hit the sack?” Tatsuki questioned with a yawn.

“I must remain diligent, but I see no reason as to why you two could not get some rest. No offence, Matsumoto-san, but you look like you could use some sleep,” he pointed out and offered her a tentative smile.

“I think I agree,” she responded, stifling a yawn of her own. “Good night, Tesra. You coming up, Tatsuki?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m right behind you.”

The two women retreated upstairs, wishing each other good night before entering separate bedrooms, Tatsuki into the spare room she occasionally shared with Tesra when the couple spent the night while she retreated to the master bedroom. The bed was still a mess from the earlier vertical dancing that had been going on. She sighed as she stripped the contaminated sheets and blankets from the bed, tossing them in the corner, and pulling out a fresh set from the closet. She didn’t bother making the bed properly. Instead, she simply crawled under the blankets and drifted to sleep before she’d had a chance to take three deep breaths.

Slumber caught her so quickly that she hadn’t even realized she’d fallen asleep until loud, drunken laughter filtered up from the living room and a glance outside showed the sun had set. Rangiku stared stupidly at the window for a few seconds before her brain kicked into gear and told her she’d slept much longer than she had intended.

She was honestly surprised that Nnoitra had let her sleep in. He hadn’t even woken her up when he returned from the meeting. Of course, he could have just gotten back from the meeting and hadn’t had time to wake her up yet, but that didn’t explain the drunken company and she doubted that even Aizen’s meeting could have gone on for more than twelve hours. The view from the window was of the West and what light she saw was definitely from the setting sun.

She checked for Tatsuki first, but her human friend was not in the guest room. Tesra was though, apparently catching a few winks himself. However, someone was in the upstairs bathroom and a knock on the door confirmed it was the missing human woman.

“How long has Nnoitra-sama been home?” she asked quietly, which was hard to do when trying to talk through a closed door.

“Two hours,” Tatsuki answered, emerging from the bathroom. “Apparently the meeting was less than stellar so he invited some people over to relieve the stress. I convinced him to let you sleep a little longer.”

“How did you manage that?” Rangiku asked in honest surprise. Nnoitra preferred her to serve them drinks when he had company over, as he liked to flaunt his property in front of those he considered lesser Arrancar.

“I told him that he rode you so damn hard that he burned you out,” Tatsuki answered with a shrug.

“You didn’t,” Rangiku gaped at her, jaw dropping at the sheer audacity of the excuse.

“I did, only not in such a crude manner. It _definitely_ stroked his ego. Men like it when their sense of self-worth gets a boost, especially when you’re referring to their sexual prowess, bonus points if you do it in front of other men. Are you up, or are you going to go back to sleep?”

The thought of going back to sleep was tempting, but if she wasn’t the one serving the men downstairs their drinks, the duty fell to Tatsuki, who was no stranger to poker evenings. Nnoitra always invited Tesra and Tesra was too loyal to say no. Poker evenings had become a semi girls’ night, interrupted only by serving the next round of booze to whoever was dry. Rangiku shook her head and sighed.

“I should get up. It would be unfair to make you deal with them by yourself. You know how grouchy they get when their cups are empty.”

“Actually, I’ve had assistance this evening.”

Rangiku was about to ask who was helping her, when Tesra was clearly sleeping, but the answer met them at the bottom of the stairs with a tray of sake cups.

“Kuchiki-san,” Rangiku greeted him, noting he was dressed in a kimono that probably cost more than everything she owned. From the design, the embroidery and the color, the designer never intended the garment for a man’s use.

He returned her greeting with a nod of his head before finishing his trek to the dining room table. Cards, coins, bottles, bowls of snacks, and crumbs from the snacks covered the surface. Most of the last lay scattered around Yammy’s chair.

 _Lovely. Now I_ _’_ _m going to have to shovel after him_ _…_ she thought in disgust.

Nnoitra looked up as they entered and a large grin covered his face. He was apparently in a good mood, which would make her evening easier. Judging by the pile of coins in front of him, he was also on a winning streak. He pushed away from the table a bit and patted his thigh. Rangiku held back a grimace and made her way towards her master with a large amount of hip swaying before seating herself in his lap. His arms came around her and his mouth latched onto her neck, sucking loudly.

“Did you have a good nap?” he asked, the question murmured against her skin.

“Yes, Nnoitra-sama.”

Then she recalled what Tatsuki had said. The young woman had been dangling one of the keys she probably used to keep Tesra content and putty in her hands in front of Rangiku’s nose. Now she decided that if it worked for Tatsuki, it might work for her and she elected to try out her human friend’s advice.

“Your amorous attentions often leave me thoroughly spent afterwards.” She also chose to say this in the same, throaty voice that had once secured her and whatever party she joined free rounds of sake in the old days, courtesy of various hard-up male waiters.

“Don’t I know it,” he smirked, not at her, but at the other seven Arrancar at the table.

 _Well, that hit the mark,_ she thought. She’d have to figure out how to thank Tatsuki for her insight.

The game resumed and she rested as comfortably as she could in his lap, trying to ignore how sore her butt was getting sitting on his boney knee. Byakuya delivered more drinks and Yammy, as if to show off his pet in the same manner, pulled the noble into a similar position in his lap. The only difference between the two was that Yammy was far more lewd and Rangiku wondered how Byakuya always managed to keep his composure while enduring such disgraceful attentions in public.

It was almost a relief when the drinks needed a refill. Nnoitra didn’t pull her back into his lap this time and waved her off after she set his drink down, though he did pull a kiss from her. She retreated to the living room and sat down on the couch in a spot where she could still see him. This way he could signal her when they needed another round. Byakuya, unfortunately, wasn’t able to escape Yammy’s groping and was quickly becoming dishevelled by the aggressive pawing of his person.

Tatsuki had decided to remain downstairs and thankfully put some food together for the two of them. She hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday. Maybe Nnoitra had felt her hunger via his Claim on her and let her retreat to break her fast.

“You don’t have to keep me entertained. You can go upstairs with Tesra if you want,” Rangiku offered, before her stomach rumbled and she snatched a sandwich from the tray on the low, living room table.

Tatsuki shook her head since her mouth was full. She swallowed before speaking.

“I am fine. Besides, you wouldn’t leave me alone down here with them. Why do you think I would do the same?”

“Point taken,” she conceded, in between bites.

“Anyhow, I notice you were almost done with Volume 5, so I ran home on the way to the market to pick up some lunch for Tesra and I and I brought back the next four volumes in the series.” Tatsuki pushed a short stack of manga volumes across the coffee table at her.

“Praise the stars! I actually finished Volume 5 two days ago and was re-reading it to kill time. Give me those!”

She snatched up the four new volumes, sorting through them until she found Volume 6.

“I was going bonkers wanting to find out if Hijima was finally going to get it on with Hikira.”

“I won’t spoil it for you then,” Tatsuki chuckled and took a bite of her sandwich.

Rangiku was well into Volume 7, stopping, with large amount of frustration, only when the men needed more alcohol or their snacks refilled. It was getting very annoying as things were finally getting hot and heavy between the two main characters and she had been looking forward to reading this scene for a month. Rangiku’s mouth begin to water and she could feel her core heating up as she stared at the images of the two very hot men wearing nothing more than very tight leather pants. Hikira had a leather harness-like thing on but that was already unbuckled and she just knew it was going to be off on the next page.

“Oi, what’s this?”

A huge, meaty hand grabbed the book from her before she could turn the page and she let out a squeal of dismay, followed by a death glare at the asshole who had dared to interrupt her.

“Hey, I was reading that!” she scowled.

“Shut your trap, wench,” Yammy grunted as he flipped through the book, eyeing the pictures with interest. “What is this shit?”

“It’s called shoujo. It’s a manga for girls full of hot guys,” Tatsuki answered calmly before Rangiku could make an angry retort of her own and try to take it back.

“Yes, it’s a manga meant for **_girls_** ,” she snapped, stressing the word ‘girls.’ “Can I have that back now, please? Things were getting good,” she almost whined.

“Che, whatever,” he grunted, tossing the book casually over his shoulder and he continued on his way past them towards the bathroom.

Rangiku made a mad dash to grab the book before it hit the floor and she lost her page, sighing in relief as she caught it before either Yammy or the fall could damage it.

“Asshole,” she muttered under her breath, cradling the precious manga to her chest.

With a sigh, she settled once more onto the couch and flipped back to the beginning. She was going to have to reread the whole sexy scene to get back into the zone.

 _Although, come to think of it, I really don_ _’_ _t mind re-reading this,_ she couldn’t help but to think excitedly. She was just to the same page again, mouth watering as she got ready to turn it, where she just knew that those pants were finally coming off, when Nnoitra hollered for another round.

 _My life seriously sucks,_ she groaned in frustration.

It was a relief to get back to the Estate. He’d had to sit in Yammy’s lap while the thug molested him in front of complete strangers, not to mention the amount of crumbs and spittle Yammy sprayed all over him as he ate. He was going to need a long bath to get all the disgusting mess out of his hair. It was very late and Yammy was intoxicated to the point of near-toxicity. If Byakuya was lucky, the Espada would retire for the night, or die of alcohol poisoning. Regrettably, that was very unlikely to happen.

The Estate came into sight and the door opened as they approached. Two servants awaited them on the other side.

“Would you like anything Yammy-sama, or will it be straight to bed?” one of the two servants questioned fearfully.

“Bed,” he grunted. “See to it my pet is cleaned and ready for me to fuck in the morning,” he grunted lewdly.

“As you wish, Yammy-sama,” both servants intoned as they bowed.

Byakuya took that as a dismissal and left for his private bathhouse to wash away the feeling of Yammy’s hands on his body, not to mention the dirt out of his hair and off of his skin. One of the Estate’s many attendants assisted him in rinsing off the evidence of ‘poker night’ before he sank into the hot water. It was a relief to climb into bed to rest after an hour-long bath.

He hadn’t gotten any sleep since the morning of the meeting that resulted in the battle. Yammy had been amorous after combat ended and he spent the next four hours pinned to the nearest surface while his Master worked out his after-battle lust, broken only by the meeting, which only seemed to dam Yammy’s lust so that afterwards he was almost twice as aggressive. Fortunately, that had only lasted an hour and had truthfully only ended because Nnoitra had walked in on them to invite the brute to play poker. As disgusting as it was to be pawed in front of Yammy’s ‘friends,’ not to mention the debris in his hair, it was far preferable to being raped.

Even after all the hours that had passed, his rear was still killing him, but he didn’t dare let it show. The servants were more than familiar enough with what he suffered through and silently left a jar of numbing cream beside his futon, a blessed gift from the man he knew only as ‘Vendor,’ who was also one of Yoruichi’s contacts. He half-suspected she was behind the cream and as such, he’d almost refused it, not wanting to accept any help from the damn were-cat. However, after one of Yammy’s vicious drinking binges, on a night that had left his arms, hips, and thighs darkened with bruises, his neck bright red from bite marks and hickies and half his body stained with his own blood and Yammy‘s cum, he had relented and used it. Pride was important, but he wasn’t in a position to let pride win out over practicality. Byakuya’s practicality told him that it would be much better to go through the day without pain than with it.

It had been almost a full twenty-four hours since Yammy had last raped him so he wasn’t in enough pain to waste any of the precious stuff. Still, it was nice to know his staff at least thought about his comfort and tried to do the best they could with what they had. He hated granting any sort of compliment to the one holding his chain, but he had to admit that Yammy had calmed down a little over the years, at least towards his staff. He hadn’t eaten anyone in a little over six years and hadn’t harmed the staff in close to two years. Trust the Kuchiki elders to be capable of semi-taming such an unruly brute without said brute even realizing they had done it.

 _They do have experience taming wild children,_ he couldn’t help but to think, recalling how different he’d been as a boy before the long years and the heavy weight of responsibility weighed him down. Hisana’s death had killed off what was left of the exuberant, wilful boy in him and that had been before Aizen’s devastating Victory.

It was hard to remember those days now with the more recent decade-and-a-half of pain-filled memories. He couldn’t help but wonder what his parents, or even his grandfather, would think of him now. Would they be devastated he had become the sexual plaything to a filthy Arrancar, or would they be disappointed in him for being weak enough to have let it happen in the first place? He wasn’t sure.

Byakuya tried, on numerous occasions over the years, to break free of the Claim. No matter how much of his reiatsu he threw against it, it was never enough. Worse, Yammy could apparently tell when he made such attempts and the resulting punishments often left him incapable of walking for a week.

The last time he’d tried to break the Claim, Yammy had beaten him into near unconsciousness, raped him violently and then had ordered the staff that, not only was he not to be treated, but he was to be denied food for a month. Yammy permitted him only a single glass of water a day, and he was only allowed to sleep every three days for no longer than four hours. He might have been able to survive that, except that the Tenth Espada pulled him over his lap every evening for a very harsh paddling before having the Claim violently refreshed. All that agony and humiliation matched with an equal amount of infinite pleasure.

Byakuya was still shocked that he’d retained his mind after enduring that month.

 _“_ _I will never leave you master,_ _”_ Senbonzakura softly whispered in his mind.

There was the very reason he hadn’t gone completely mad. Senbonzakura had held him while he’d sobbed brokenly in his inner world every night after Yammy finished with him while he outwardly maintained the normal calm expected of someone of his class. His Zanpakuto understood him in ways that no one ever would and could comfort him without Yammy noticing. True, the brute could still take his Zanpakuto away, but only if he wished to piss off Aizen, especially with the Defence Net inoperable.

He hated the Claim, hated it with more emotion than he’d ever felt in his life. All of his skills at maintaining an emotionless mask meant nothing when his captor could read his very feelings. A simple command from his Master could force those walls to crumble as if they were dust, and the resulting exposure was torment itself.

Then there was his silence. His throat, surgically altered by Szayel at Yammy’s command long ago as a punishment, could create nothing more than pants, cries and moans. He was unable to articulate words any longer. In some ways, it was a small blessing as Yammy could not compel him to say some of the ludicrous and crass things the Claim had once forced passed his lips during the first year of his enslavement. In other ways, it was an extreme hindrance. His inability to speak rendered him incapable of running a Division again. True he still assisted Jushiro’s Division, but that was only with the administrative duties. He could not exactly shout out commands.

Byakuya also had no way to communicate with the creature holding his leash short of going through secondary sources as, to this day, Yammy remained illiterate and made no effort in learning to read. Thus, he could not deflect any of the Aspect of Anger’s ire when he found himself its focus. There was no way of reasoning with the beast.

Still, there were things about Yammy that confused him, such as his odd patience with children. Many a time Yammy had caught Ajuga on the Estate when she came to visit him, and yet the Espada had never done more than grunt at her and shoo her away when he was in a bad mood. Yammy never raised his fist, or took out his considerable temper, upon any of the children, not even Hana, who wasn’t even a Hollow.

That was the only redeeming quality he’d ascribe to the huge bastard. Not that it absolved Yammy of all of his crimes, or even put a small dent in the massive case to be made for destroying the Espada on the spot if he ever had the opportunity, but at least it was one less concern he had to worry about when Ajuga was around. Her visits were always a highlight of his day, although he would never admit it.

The blankets had warmed up with his body heat, and he found himself drifting to sleep. He didn’t bother to fight it. As soon as Yammy started to stir the monster would summon him to serve his master. Giving the amount of drinking Yammy had done this evening, the Espada was sure to have one hell of a hangover, which always put him in a bad mood. Those bad moods had a tendency to get Byakuya injured in some way.

He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep, only that it was still dark when one of the servants rushed into his quarters, frantically calling for him. He was awake in an instant, his hand grasping Senbonzakura and his reiatsu scanning for the threat. Off in the distance, he could hear the perimeter alarms going off.

The Swarm was already back.

As much as he desired to get more rest, he couldn’t help but to silently thank the crisis for giving him the chance to avoid Yammy’s attentions for that much longer. For the duration of a battle, he could forget that he had been reduced to nothing more than a rabid beast’s fuck toy and recapture a little of the proud, dangerous and noble Shinigami he’d once been. He could feel and remember what it was like to be in command of his own fate, to have his powers acknowledged, appreciated, and even stared at in awe as his thousands of twirling blades, each catching and reflecting the light, painted the field with the ichor of his enemies. Moreover, when the fight was done, not a hair on his body would be out of place despite the fact he would be surrounded by hundreds of corpses, shredded to ribbons.

If he was very lucky, the conflict would work off Yammy’s hangover and he would be less violent with Byakuya afterwards. Yammy on a battle-high was always better than a drunk or hung over one. The former often could control his strength so the damage was less in the end while the latter had no inhibitions and often left him unable to walk for hours.

The alarm switched off just as he reached the front gates, followed by the all clear. Either it had been a false alarm or it had been a small incursion that had quickly been dealt with.

“What the hell is with the racket?” Yammy demanded with snarl.

No one dared to answer. In fact, everyone who could move had already fled. Byakuya could not blame them. The reiatsu rolling off of the Espada was utterly malevolent, so malevolent that even a dense human would have been able to detect it. It was bad enough dealing with Yammy when he was sleep-deprived; dealing with a sleep-deprived and hung over Yammy was worse than spending a year in Hell.

“I asked a question, I expect it answered,” Yammy snarled, grabbing him by the front of the plain, white yukata he had thrown on and dragging him forward so they were face to face.

Byakuya cringed at the rank smell of Yammy’s breath and truly wished he could speak. When Yammy was in this kind of mood he tended to forget that Byakuya was incapable of speech, and that he was the one that ordered his pet silenced in the first place.

 _“_ _I could speak for us,_ _”_ Senbonzakura hesitantly offered.

Byakuya had never considered that possibility before, primarily because manifesting one’s Zanpakuto spirit in the company of others was simply not done. There was no guarantee that Yammy would even believe Senbonzakura and would simply attack him.

“Answer the question,” Yammy snarled, backhanding him so hard that the yukata tore and he collapsed to the ground.

Blood gushed out of his nose and from the cut that one of Yammy’s nails had slashed open on his forehead, staining the white garment red. He prayed his nose wasn’t broken when his face had hit the wooden floor. He felt Senbonzakura’s rage, but there was nothing either one of them could do about it. He felt the Claim clamp around him as Yammy tried to force him to answer, but all that managed to do was to force him to make gargling noises. A fist connected with his temple and he saw stars while his ears rang so strongly he couldn’t even hear Yammy anymore.

 _“_ _Please, Master_ _”_ Senbonzakura begged, _“At this rate he’ll kill us!”_

Byakuya couldn’t deny that. Yammy wasn’t just hung-over and sleep deprived. He was still bloody drunk and quickly getting more and more angry! Reluctantly, he agreed and spared some of his reiatsu so Senbonzakura could manifest beside him.

“Please stop, Yammy-sama.” Senbonzakura requested as he materialized.

His sudden appearance startled the Espada, who stared at the Zanpakuto spirit in confusion, thankfully breaking the growing storm or rage before it reached a point that the brute could no longer be reasoned with.

“We do not know why the alarm went off either. Perhaps they were just testing the system, since the Net went down, to make sure it still works,” Senbonzakura offered.

Yammy stared at Senbonzakura in clear confusion. It would seem that the idiot was still completely out of it. One could even question if Yammy even understood he was being addressed.

“Fucking racket,” Yammy grunted, straightening up. “Bed, now!” he ordered with an irritated bark. “I am too damn tired right now t’deal with this shit. I’ll talk t’you in th’ morning.”

Byakuya pulled himself to his feet, adjusting the torn yukata to cover his body and holding back a wince of pain. Senbonzakura returned to his inner world without another word. It was with great relief that Yammy didn’t stop him from returning to his own room, and another relief to note that one of the servants had left a steaming cup of mint tea for him, as well as a bowl of warm water and a cloth to clean the blood from his face.

He gingerly washed the blood away before settling down in the typical Jinzen position in the center of his futon. Most of his thoughts floated to his inner world while leaving just enough of his consciousness outside to drink the soothing tea. Senbonzakura was waiting for him, and the two sat under the tree that had once been the only living thing in his inner world, barely a sapling back then, when his Zanpakuto had been returned to him.

His inner world was still in a state of terrible decay and disrepair, but the one sprout had grown fifteen feet tall now and the area around it had fresh verdant grass. Even the small hut a few yards away seemed recently repaired. The healing was slow, and the conditions often reversed themselves when Yammy got exceptionally brutal with him, but he was healing.

It took half an hour to ease his mind and numb the pain in his body enough that he could fall back asleep. The late night interruption just meant that Yammy was going to be all the more irritable when he did wake up. Byakuya silently prayed the alarms would not go off again tonight and he intended to bring the issue up tomorrow with Jushiro so that the older Shinigami could address it at the next meeting.

Who tested alarms, assuming it was a test and not a small incursion that had been quickly dealt with, this late at night so soon after a battle without warning anyone? Byakuya decided that Yammy wasn’t the only idiot roaming the Seireitei at this point.


	5. Pride

Grimmjow awoke in the late afternoon, highly disappointed that the spot on the bed next to him was empty. His disappointment lessened when Karin returned to their bedroom with skin glistening from a shower and wearing nothing more than the towel wrapped around her damp hair.

“Fuck, I could wake up to that every day,” he declared and leered at her.

“Not with language like that,” she snorted, walking past him and seductively swaying her hips just to torment him as she did so.

Oh, the hips definitely got his attention. Grimmjow watched a tiny water drop trickle down from her hair to linger on the tip of one breast before falling to the floor. The sight brought him up to a full salute. He rose up out of the bed and stalked up behind her as Karin stood before their wardrobe. She didn’t even flinch as his hands wrapped around her to grab her breasts, the flesh shower-warmed and pliable beneath his fingers.

“You know, this ability of yours to see reiatsu can be a serious downer at times,” he complained, disappointed he hadn‘t taken her by surprise.

“I shudder to think what it would be like NOT to see you coming,” she retorted, leaning back into his embrace and swaying her body with his.

The friction of her bare behind rubbing against his straining arousal proceeded to drive him insane. All he wanted to do was to toss her back down onto their futon and ride her until he passed out.

“Not now,” Karin said firmly, clearly reading his mind.

“Hmm?” he questioned innocently.

Karin turned in his grasp so they were face-to-face. He captured her lips in a kiss before she could protest, and for a moment she fell into it, but eventually she pushed him away just enough so she could speak.

“I have to go to work in ten minutes and I am already clean. I do not want to have to shower again,” she said with more resolution this time.

“What if I don’t want you to go to work?” he questioned with a growl, nibbling her neck as he did so. Her body was so warm and flushed against his and it was only made him ache for her all the more. She sighed against his shoulder.

“As much as I would love to play hooky, the person I answer to lives three doors down and knows I am in perfect health,” she reminded him.

She pushed more firmly against him, and with a groan of frustration, he let her push him a step back. A harsher shove forced him to take another step and he stumbled on the edge of their futon. One more push sent him pitching backwards, until he landed on his rump on the top of their blankets. Before he had a chance to recover or protest, she was suddenly kneeling before him and her hands shoved his chest one more time, getting him to lie down.

“Insatiable,” she smiled at him, shaking her head in amusement.

Before he could question what she was up to, her head ducked down and her lips locked around his straining erection. He gasped and arched into her mouth, pleasure racing down his spine as she sucked him into the warm, moist cavern of her mouth. Her hands grasped his thighs and pinned him down as she let out a growl of complaint at the involuntary thrust he made.

She so rarely offered him oral pleasure. He’d experienced this maybe a dozen times in the ten years they had been together sexually, and each of those times he recalled the first time she had done this and how he had felt knowing that this was Kurosaki’s sister doing something so intimate, so personal, without him even needing to coerce it out of her. It was a delicious reminder of the moment that he knew he had fully corrupted the bastard’s baby sister.

Now he hardly ever even thought of the hybrid he’d once obsessed over. Somewhere along the way, he replaced his vicious fixation on one Kurosaki with an unquenchable hunger for another… or, at least, a _former_ Kurosaki. After their little fight and argument years ago, Karin had taken to using his family name, and rightfully so now that they were mated.

All other mental reflection on his part instantly vanished as her tongue lavished him, making him tremble at the sensations she caused. He dug his hands into the blankets in a vain effort to ground himself because he didn’t want to harm her by grabbing her hair or head. In his current state of bliss, he didn’t have the ability to mind his own strength.

He panted heavily as her mouth worked him and he squirmed about in the bedding. Karin paused and he managed to catch his breath just enough to glance down his body to meet her eyes. She grinned at him in a feral manner, lips firmly fastened around the shaft in her mouth as she increased the suction. She never dropped his gaze and a solid suck sent his back arching and his semen gushing from his body to fill her mouth. His orgasm seemed to last for an eternity and by the time the euphoria died down enough for him to think, let alone see, straight, Karin had tossed the towel she’d used to wipe her mouth onto his chest and was already dressed.

“I’ll see you after work,” she purred at him as she sauntered out of the room.

He watched her go before collapsing back on the rumpled sheets. He remained there for a good ten minutes while he waited for the room to stop spinning. Shit, that woman knew how to make his legs weak and still, to this day, could milk an orgasm out of him that would leave him exhausted for hours. It was moments like this that he was glad he had once thought to use her as bait and then, when she was older, accepted the deal to screw her in exchange for protecting her sister.

Recovered enough that he could at least walk without collapsing, he made his way to their bathroom to take a shower of his own. He emerged with a towel wrapped around his waist to see Ajuga sitting at their table with a scowl on her face.

“Morning,” he greeted his daughter. “What’s got your tail in a knot?” he questioned.

“Aizen wants to interview Hana, Diaemus and I over capturing that stupid bug,” she complained.

“Which bug?” he asked, confused.

It was true that the kids had discovered two new species, but the way Ajuga said ‘that bug’ implied that there was something more going on. It had been a week since the battle and Grimmjow had to wonder why Aizen had waited until now to ask questions about whatever it was that they’d found.

 _Probably because everyone has been so busy with the Net down,_ he decided.

“I’m talking about the one we found, the one that looks almost human. Szay was super excited when we brought it in, and oddly enough, seemed really happy it was dead.”

Then Ajuga frowned in confusion.

“Anyway, Aizen wants to know how much of their conversation we overheard before they noticed we were there and tried to escape, even though we all told him, three times already, that we couldn’t make out the words. It’s not like they speak our language anyway,” she growled.

Grimmjow only followed half the conversation, his own mind whirling. They had never told their daughter about her Royal Lineage. The fewer people that knew, the safer the secret was, and the only human-like bugs he knew of were the Generals. In Grimmjow’s opinion, too many people already knew about his daughter’s real bloodlines for his liking. He definitely didn’t enjoy the fact that Aizen had taken the opportunity to pay any attention to his daughter, even if it involved a subject that was, from the outside, valid.

He studied his daughter, unhappy with the fact she was as grown up as she was. It seemed like yesterday that she was still running about on all fours and coming up to him bursting with pride with her latest small kill dangling from her mouth, much to Karin’s frustration. Now, she was almost old enough to think about finding a mate of her own, and he felt his hackles rise at the thought.

In his opinion, not one damned Arrancar in Aizen’s army was good enough for her, or for that matter, strong enough to fight his way through her father to get to her. As the attempt two less-than-smart Arrancar made on little Vindula last year proved, that didn’t mean some of those unworthy fucks wouldn’t try.

Ajuga and Hana were _both_ coming of age and would soon draw the attention of those looking for a mate. Hana, at least, could control and hide her reiatsu. In addition, everyone knew that she was the daughter of one of Starrk’s pets. As a Shinigami, she was also a less tempting target. Ajuga, on the other hand, preferred to let others know precisely how strong she was. What made her doubly attractive was that she was not only an Arrancar, but also a naturally born one at that. No one had been foolish enough to look at her suggestively yet, other than the one altercation with Barragan, the same one Ulquiorra had intervened in and damn if that hadn’t galled him to have to thank the Fourth for that one.

“Oh, Papa…”

“Hmm,” he pulled his wandering thoughts back to the present and silently vowed to put some serious thought into how he would terrorize every Arrancar in existence with a public statement about what he would do to them if they thought the wrong way about his only child.

“Keep it down,” she stated simply, her ears flat against her head as she shot him a look of disgust.

He couldn’t help but to laugh, earning him a death glare. If he was honest with himself, he felt more than little relieved that she found the idea of sex revolting. That meant she wasn’t interested in finding anyone yet. Still, maybe he should have ‘the talk’ with her, or better yet, see if he could ask Harribel to do it. Mating was different for women of any species and Ajuga might be more comfortable having that conversation with another female instead of her father. Unfortunately, Karin was not a Hollow and didn’t know what Hollow females went through. She also didn’t know how to return a Mating Claim, or even cast a regular one herself, should a fool attempt to Claim her. Karin cast Claims considerably differently than a Hollow did and again, neither he nor her mother wanted Ajuga to know that Karin could cast a Claim at all.

“No promises,” he offered. “Blame your mother, she’s….”

“I don’t want to hear it,” she scowled angrily at him. “That’s just… so _wrong_ ,” she muttered. “Anyway, I better get going. I gotta meet up with Hana outside her Division. Diaemus is going to catch up to us at Szay’s.”

He really, truly wanted to escort his daughter to this meeting. He had no love and even less trust for Aizen, but he had his own assigned duties and Aizen had been particularly moody since the Net went down. The fact they were meeting up with Szayel gave him a little peace of mind. It was still strange to think that Szayel would sooner die than see any harm come to the children. If being violently tortured and raped at Aizen’s hands hadn’t caused the scientist to squeal what he knew about Ajuga and Karin’s heritage to spare his own hide, putting them in harm’s way, then nothing would make him do so now.

 _Of course, his continued existence as an Espada hinges on Karin_ _’_ _s whim. At any minute she could retract her Claim and he would become nothing more than a blubbering brat,_ he thought wryly. _After that, he_ _’_ _d be someone_ _’_ _s lunch._

“Later,” Ajuga called. She waved as she left, the door whispering as it slid shut behind her.

With a sigh, he pulled himself up. He had his own duties to perform after all.

Karin had a massive headache. She had happily forgotten how much paperwork a battle created. Worse, their Division was the one responsible for coordinating the Rukongai Districts and with the Net down once again, they had to get those patrols back up to full force and make sure the civilian force worked in conjunction with them.

Once Szayel determined that the Defence Net would hold, at least for a while, many of those civilians had joined the Academy. The Shinōreijutsuin’s administrators dropped the normal entrance requirements so that anyone who could wield a weapon stood a chance of admission, regardless of their reiatsu levels. As a result, Jushiro and Nanao had informed her that one of the topics discussed during the last dozen Taichou meetings was the possibility of starting up a sixth Division.

“Karin, can you deliver these to Jushiro?” Nanao asked, pushing over a stack of papers her way.

“Are you sure he needs these right now? We could always just give them to him at dinner,” she suggested with an amused smile.

It was an old running joke between them. Although they had exchanged paperwork at home on occasion, Jushiro had actually been the one to inform them that he forbid conducting Division business on his Estate, unless something made that business unavoidable. He had learned, long before either of them had been born, that one needed a sanctuary and that most things could wait until the next morning without the universe ending.

“I was hoping you would bring lunch back with you,” Nanao added.

“I knew there was a second reason. Consider it done,” Karin assured her.

She accepted the stack of papers and departed with the promise to bring back something edible. In fact, she stopped off to pick up the food first. If she knew Jushiro and Byakuya, which she did, then she also knew that neither one of them had probably thought to bring lunch.

Bento boxes in hand, she rapped on the door to the office of the 2nd Division before entering, and nearly dropped everything as she stared at Byakuya in surprise. It was very, very hard not to burst into laughter and she utterly failed at holding back the smile of amusement.

Both men had looked up at her when she entered and Byakuya let out a sigh before returning his attention to the papers before him.

“Why do I got a sneaking suspicion that Yammy, somehow, managed to get his hands on those Yaoi shoujo manga that Tatsuki and Rangiku like to share, specifically _Yuumagure_?” she asked with a shake of her head.

Byakuya let out another unhappy noise and nodded his head. Karin figured as much since the elaborate woman’s kimono Yammy had forced him to wear for years had been exchanged for tight leather black pants, a black leather harness and matching straps around his wrist, biceps, waist and throat, all with little clips on them that were intended to latch to each other for bondage sex play. She suspected he was wearing similar straps around his ankles and thighs, as that was specifically what she recalled Hikira wore in said manga. Not that _she_ had read it or anything of course, she had just seen the pictures Tatsuki had shoved under her nose…

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, every woman for miles will be staring at you with drooling lust instead of confused pity and silent laughter,” she offered.

The glare he sent her made it clear that he was not amused.

“Not that I ever entertained either thought,” she assured him, holding up her hands and waving them in denial. “I brought you two lunch since I know neither one of you have stopped since setting foot in the office.”

She held up the bento boxes as a peace offering, one that both men accepted with gratitude.

“Thank you, Karin,” Jushiro said and smiled at her, accepting the boxed lunch. “Did you grab one for Nanao as well?” he questioned.

“Yes, and before you ask, I made sure to get one for myself as well. I plan on dragging her nose out of those papers long enough to at least eat. I think I managed to blot out the memory of how much paperwork we had before the Net went up.”

She paused to give both men a glare, “…and I don’t see those pens going down and that food going into your mouths. Do I need to hand feed you?” she threatened. “Or send Ajuga and Hana in,” she added for good measure.

“No, no, we’re eating,” Jushiro quickly assured her, taking the lid off the top of his bento and picking up the chopsticks.

A warning look Byakuya’s way made sure the noble did the same. Karin nodded in satisfaction as the two men began to eat. Despite her best efforts, her eyes kept sliding towards Byakuya. She found it difficult not to stare at the… ensemble… that Yammy had forced him into and not because the Noble actually looked good in it. It was because she couldn’t help but daydream about Grimmjow wearing such clothing. Oh yes, the naughty thoughts entering her head about what her mate would look like swathed in a similar leather get-up definitely did nothing for her composure.

 _Damn, corrupting bastard,_ she couldn’t help but to think with a mixture of fondness and irritability.

She needed a distraction and she needed it quickly. She didn’t want to turn her back to Byakuya, as that would be rude, but it was getting very difficult to remain focused.

 _I expect that many women walked into poles and tripped over their feet when he walked to work this morning,_ she couldn’t help but muse.

“Did Starrk and Lilinette leave this morning for their own patrols?” she asked instead.

“Starrk did. Lilinette is helping Szayel out with the new specimens, or so she said. It could just be a lie so she wouldn’t have to patrol. She finds doing so boring and dreary,” Jushiro answered, a hint of fondness in his voice.

“Just so long as it wasn’t a lie so she could stay home and attempt to cook dinner unsupervised again,” Karin warned and made a face at the memory.

Properly supervised, Lilinette was capable of making a good meal. When she wasn’t, she tended to go a little overboard with the spices. She would also attempt to make something Orihime had recommended to her, and then spring it on the rest of the unsuspecting household members. It was a hard to decide which outcome was worse, or had the potential to do more damage to the average stomach.

They shared a bit more small talk before Karin excused herself so that she could return to Nanao and the two of them could eat together. She tried to keep her thoughts on a professional track while on her way back to her own Division, but it was very hard with the mental images racing through her mind. Oh, to see Grimmjow dressed up in that outfit Yammy had forced Byakuya to wear.

 _I wonder if Byakuya would be willing to sell it to me. He didn_ _’_ _t look too happy in it. He and Grimmjow are about the same size.._. _Actually, I think Grimmjow is a bit taller than he is by several centimetres. Still, I bet the vest and straps would still fit, and it_ _’_ _s not like the pants would stay on for long anyway,_ she couldn’t help but to think lecherously.

 _Damn it all, I used to be such a nice, respectable girl,_ she groused good-naturedly to herself.

“What’s got your head lost in the clouds?” Nanao asked, breaking Karin out of her daydreaming as she breezed through the door, managing not to walk into the frame while mentally drooling.

“If you saw what Yammy made Byakuya wear, your head would be right up there with mine,” Karin chuckled, shaking her head.

“Oh?”

Karin went on to explain the latest fashion trend Yammy forced upon Byakuya while Nanao ate, and nearly choked on her food, having also read the manga in question. Tatsuki freely shared her books, since she was the only one that really had access to someone who could supply her with them.

 _Bless, Tesra. He would do almost anything for Tatsuki, and that includes returning with things from the Living Realm on the occasion he actually gets a mission there,_ she thought fondly of the shy Arrancar.

She’d occasionally considered asking Grimmjow to bring her back something during one of his few assignments there during the five years of relative peace, but at the same time, she was doing everything she could to forget about her life there. This was her home now and nothing was likely to change that. The only thing she truly wished for was word on how Yuzu was doing, but it would be unfair to ask him to snoop around for that information as it would, undoubtedly, bring him in conflict with Ichigo. She wouldn’t be able to live with herself knowing that one of her requests had resulted in the two of them hurting, or even killing, one another.

She really wished her last words spoken to Ichigo hadn’t been hurtful ones, but she had needed him to run, to get away before he got hurt or got her family into trouble. She didn’t even want to think about what Aizen would do to them if he felt that they were sharing information with the Escapees. It was bad enough that she still met, from time to time, with Yoruichi.

 _I could, perhaps, ask her how they are doing,_ she mused. _…and find out if anyone ever told my family about Ajuga._

She knew that at least three members of that band knew about Ajuga, and one of them hardly seemed like the ‘keep a secret’ sort of girl. Karin still felt guilty for not telling Yuzu that she was pregnant before her sister had managed to escape with Ichigo to the Living World, where she belonged.

The real reason Karin hadn’t done so yet was because she didn’t want to be in the woman’s debt, and because she feared the answer. She had hurt her brother badly, abandoning him for the man that had tried to kill him, several times over in fact, and had said some harsh things, things she wished she could take back.

“Karin? Karin? **Karin**!” Nanao practically shouted the last one. Karin jumped in her seat and looked at Nanao.

“Ack! Oh, sorry, I was… thinking,” she apologized. Nanao frowned at her.

“Fantasize about Grimmjow in leather straps another time. Are you going to eat or am I going to have to sick the girls on you?” she threatened.

Karin couldn’t help but to laugh, having just used the same threat against the men earlier.

“I am eating, I am eating!” Karin promised her, digging into her own lunch.

She managed to keep her thoughts straight for the rest of the day, and even caught up on her paperwork before it was time to head back to the Estate. To her relief, Lilinette hadn’t played chef. Hana and Ajuga were in charge of the kitchen this evening, with a disgruntled Diaemus and a cheerful Vindula assisting.

“Vindula-chan, what brings you by?” Karin asked curiously. She rarely saw the child without her guardian and a quick scan told her Renji was nowhere near.

“Everyone was too busy putting stupid little machines together to pay attention to me,” she pouted unhappily, “…so Hana-neesan invited me over to help,” she explained and beamed happily up at the older girl.

“They’re building the new ground probes designed to detect any future attempt by the Swarm to tunnel under our defences and come up behind us,” Hana translated.

“Ah,” both women replied, understanding now.

“You are always welcomed here, Vindula,” Nanao assured her with a smile. “If you have everything under control here, then I am going to go wash and change into something more comfortable.”

“As will I,” Karin added.

It didn’t take long to find clean clothing and return to the large sitting area just off of the main dining room. Each set of suites had their own kitchens and living spaces, but most of the time they tried to sit together and used the communal one. It was an odd, mismatched family, but a family nonetheless.

Karin noticed that Nanao chose to wear the pink kimono that had once belonged to Hana’s father. Karin had learned quite a bit about the late Shunsui from Jushiro, the two having been childhood friends, and around this time of year, the anniversary of his death, Nanao would wear the old thing. No matter how many times it went through the laundry, the faded brown bloodstains appeared set in. They would still be there, Karin guessed, when the garment finally went the way of all things and fell apart.

Hana had never met her father. He’d died before she was born. Karin sometimes wondered if that might not be better for her. Since she had never known her father, she didn’t know the pain of losing him. Karin recalled the loss of both of her own parents and one never really recovered from the resulting pain. It only faded with the application of time. On the other hand, Hana had no happy memories of her father either. Many a time Karin found herself smiling, remembering her own father’s insane antics, but she had also spent a lot of time fighting back tears when she was younger, especially when it came to what little she could recall of Kurosaki Masaki. In particular, she’d had a hard time standing mournfully alone while the other girls met up with their mothers and received praise for their accomplishments. Hana, she thought, would probably have to decide for herself whether her situation was fortunate or not.

With long practice, she forced the morbid thoughts aside and instead slipped into Jinzen, focusing her sight and thoughts on the rest of the household that had yet to arrive.

Jushiro and Lilinette were on their way to the Estate together. No doubt the female half of the first Espada had deliberately swung by Jushiro‘s Division to make sure that he dropped his pen and came home at a reasonable time. Jushiro did have a habit of overworking himself and if Lilinette had decided that one was supposed to come home, one came home. The deceptively strong girl didn’t brook arguments.

Starrk and Grimmjow were still out in the field, but both were clearly heading back towards the city. She sent a rush of love towards her mate through their bond and a moment later felt it return, although Karin was sure that it was more lust than love. To a Hollow, the two might be the same thing.

“Dinner smells great!” Lilinette exclaimed as she all but danced into the sitting room, Jushiro following in her wake.

“It’s almost done, Lili-chan,” Hana called. “Can you set the table?”

“Sure thing,” the younger half of the First replied. “C’mon Shiro-chan, you can help!”

“If I must,” Jushiro agreed with a fake sigh of exasperation, accepting the pile of plates Lilinette handed him.

“You bet you must,” Lilinette declared firmly.

Jushiro failed to hold back a grin, as did Karin and Nanao. Moments like this made Karin happy and content, a feeling that only increased when Starrk and Grimmjow walked into the chaos. The First took his usual place at the head of the table while the second one made straight for her and pulled a deep, lecherous kiss from her while giving her ass a strong squeeze.

“Gross. Keep that in your own room,” Ajuga scowled at them as the girls brought in dinner on platters.

Her daughter’s words resulted in a chuckle from both of them, but Karin did push Grimmjow away and she made for her usual spot at the table. Such things should not be done in front of young eyes, and Vindula was still rather young.

“Will you be staying Diaemus, or going home?” she asked the quiet boy.

“Staying, if you would have me,” he answered politely.

“Does Orihime know?” Karin asked, if only to make sure.

It wouldn’t be the first time Diaemus had decided what his mother was making for dinner was better off not eaten. True, Orihime did tend to stick to normal food for her mate and their son, but some days she just got so lost in her thoughts that she accidentally forgot that her mate and son didn’t like cheese, chocolate sauce and pickled herring in their rice.

“Yes. Father is patrolling tonight and mother is helping out at the 4th Division.”

Everyone settled around the table as Hana brought out the last platter.

“This looks excellent,” Jushiro proclaimed.

“Wait until you taste it ‘take-ji,” Hana told him and beamed at the praise he gave to an as-yet-uneaten meal. “Ajuga-chan was the one that hunted up the chickens,” she added.

“Wild ones, I hope?” Karin asked her daughter, her eyes carrying a warning.

“Of course,” Ajuga complained, and rolled her eyes at her mother. “I am not three anymore, I can tell the difference between wild and domestic chickens.”

“How?” Vindula asked curiously.

“The wild ones aren’t plump and full of fat from roosting all day. Also, domestic ones tend to be in coops and yards and are not nearly as skittish,” she shrugged.

“Oh, that makes sense.”

The rest of the dinner conversation carried on with a variety of topics. Those who spent hours a day fighting and maintaining the peace greatly appreciated the relaxing domestic routine. They sent Vindula home after dinner, escorted by Diaemus and Ajuga for safety, with three plates wrapped up for her family. Karin knew Szayel, Nemu and Abisara and thus knew they would not stop for a break unless they were forced or exhaustion overwhelmed them, or Renji showed up to drag his small male charge to the dinner table.

For good measure, she pulled slightly on the Claim she held over Szayel after tracking Vindula and her escort all the way home, only letting her awareness drop once the child stood next to her father. She felt the flash of irritation at her pull and couldn’t help but grin again. She ‘watched’ all four of them move from the workshop into Szayel’s personal chambers and nodded in satisfaction, returning her attention to her own family. Everyone she cared for was safe and sound for the moment. It would seem that today was going to be one of those exceptionally rare good days.

“As much as I thoroughly enjoyed your little present earlier, I now feel the need to defend my male pride and return the favour tenfold,” Grimmjow breathed into her ear before nuzzling the side of her neck, mindful of his mask fragment.

“Mmm, that’s a challenge I think I can accept,” she purred back, leaning contently into his arms.


	6. Blood Moon

When a week passed after the battle and no abuse rained down on him, he figured that the Defence Net falling hadn’t upset Aizen too greatly. Things had been getting dull and the Arrancar had started to become restless. The return to a state of war gave the Arrancar an outlet for their natural tendencies towards violence.

Gin lay in his little cubby, hugging Shinso to him and shivering. It was cold tonight and he had been denied clothing unless leaving the suites, all the better to note the Kanji carved into his chest by his own hand with his own Zanpakuto, not to mention fifteen years’ worth of scars from various torture sessions, almost every last one visited upon him by Aizen’s hand. The rest were there courtesy of others following Aizen’s commands. Aizen required that he hurt those others in return, with the exception of one.

Unohana. Aizen’s wife. His mistress. She had been ordered to punish him a couple of times over the years, but no matter how furious Aizen got, no matter how much she pushed the issue, Aizen had only raised his hand to his wife once. Every other time, Gin took the punishments in her stead, as Aizen was well aware how much it hurt her to see others suffer.

Unohana was absent. He didn’t know where she was but if he had to guess, it would be that she was still at the 4th Division. There had been another conflict today, albeit a small one, four hours ago. The Swarm had sent a probing force, if he was to guess, to make sure the Defence Net was still down. No doubt, the Swarm, depleted on its expendable members in bringing the Net down, would need to rebuild their forces in the spring.

A gust of wind blew past him, and he shivered, his teeth chattering. His lone blanket was long gone and the floor was cold against his skin. Shinso sent him wave of comfort, but that was about all his Zanpakuto could do. Gin didn’t even want to think about the consequences of Aizen walking in to seeing the small fox spirit manifest in an effort to help keep him warm.

He glared at the wide-open balcony doors, but Kami forbid him to close them. Aizen wanted the apartment aired out, or so he claimed. Gin was positive that the real reason was so he could suffer exactly like this. While they didn’t get much in the way of snow in Soul Society during the winter, it still dropped well below freezing at night. Frost gilded the barren tree branches and coated the skeletal shrubs in the garden. Gin could no longer feel his fingers and toes and his teeth rattled so hard that he was worried they were going to chip.

 _Not like I ain_ _’_ _t used to this, or, at least there was a time I was,_ he couldn’t help but to think.

He had been a Rukongai brat, living in the next-to-the-worst District, nothing to his name but a single kimono. At least that had offered him more protection than being completely naked. He’d also had Rangiku to help keep him warm, and the ratty, hole- ridden blanket they had once shared. Sometimes, he even managed to find a mouldy stack of straw and scraps of wood or twigs that would provide enough fuel for a small fire.

Another, stronger gust of wind blew through the room, bringing with it several fallen leaves to litter the clean floor. Gin let out a mental curse and forced his shivering, frozen body to uncurl so he could deal with them. He was shaking too badly and his joints were too stiff to walk effectively, so he settled for crawling. He couldn’t even feel the boards under his fingers.

He gathered the leaves up and brought them to the balcony door. As cold as it was inside, it was positively frigid outside. A thin layer of ice coated the balcony. The cold burned his numb hands and shins as he moved over it. His entire mind seemed frozen and he briefly toyed with the idea of just staying there. It was too much work to make it back to his cubby and it wasn’t even that warm to begin with.

 _If I died, she_ _’_ _d be unhappy,_ he thought numbly.

He forced his body to turn about and crawl back into the dubious safety of Unohana’s bedroom. The wooden panels seemed so much warmer inside than the frost-coated porch. He eyed the bed, more specifically, the blankets on it. He weighed the options of which was worse; freezing to death or the inevitable punishment Aizen would administer for daring to grab one of them in an effort to save himself. He doubted he would even feel it if Aizen flayed the skin from his back, he was that frozen.

Gin had no idea how long he lay there on the floor, fuzzily calculating the odds in his head. It became increasingly difficult as he slipped into the early stages of hypothermia. He maintained enough mental lucidly to decide that it wasn’t worth it, that Aizen could mistake Unohana as being the one to have covered him. Then he would punish them both. In truth, all he wanted to do now was sleep.

He barely managed to make it back to his cubby, curling against the wall with his back facing the open doors. He was shivering so hard now he couldn’t even stay on his hands and knees and had to practically roll the last little bit. Some tiny part of him that still gave a damn knew that if he gave in to the urge to sleep, he might not wake up again. He fought unconsciousness tooth and nail but it was a battle he was losing by the minute. In fact, so focused was he on that one, survival-driven goal that he never noticed that someone else had entered the room, nor did he hear them speak.

Someone threw a warm blanket over him and he was so cold that it practically burned! The hands that touched his forehead _did_ burn and he flinched away from the scalding heat. Gin heard words, but he couldn’t understand the speaker, nor did he recognize the voice. The heat surrounding him from the blanket was too seductive and he drifted away into the darkness without a fight.

Unohana was a very emotionally reserved person; one had to be when they ran a medical Division where people died under one’s hands, regardless of how hard one worked to save them. Everyone praised her as the best physician and healer that Soul Society had ever had, and yet she still lost patients who were too far gone to help.

When she walked into her room, exhausted from the day’s work, the last thing she had expected was for her room to be ice-cold, with the balcony door flung wide, especially on a freezing night like tonight. Gin would never have forgotten to close them. He would have made sure the room was comfortable, which meant that Aizen had been the one behind any orders to leave the doors open.

She had felt a moment of shock when she saw the pale-skinned man shaking so hard in his cubby that one could have mistaken it for seizures. Ignoring the doors, she rushed to her bed and grabbed the top blanket, pulling it over the clearly delirious man. He was so frozen that his skin numbed her hand as she rested it against his forehead. His eyes were completely unfocused and, very shortly, rolled up into his skull as he lost consciousness.

Cursing mentally, and calling her ‘husband’ a slew of foul words that would have caused Zaraki Kenpachi’s eyes to twitch, she dragged Gin from his cubby and did her best to pick him up. It was difficult thanks to his body’s trembling and the fact he seemed stuck in a fetal position. She decided he must have curled up to try to retain what little warmth he had left and his muscles had cramped, locking him in that posture. He was so far gone that she could feel the cold radiating through the blanket she had wrapped him in.

Her husband and his rules be damned, she rushed Gin to the 4th. Her staff looked up at her in surprise as she marched through the main entrance, nearly kicking the doors open so that she wouldn’t have to put Gin down. She almost never returned after leaving for the day, but they scrambled quickly once she informed them of Gin’s condition.

By the time she made it to one of the better-insulated rooms, a large pile of blankets awaited them. She put him down on the bed and began to layer more and more blankets onto him, going to slightly warmed ones on the fifth layer. She checked his extremities for frostbite and sighed in relief when she saw no signs of it. It hadn’t been quite that cold out, but as a medic, she took no chances.

She pulled a mask over his head and warmed oxygen quickly began to flow into the man wearing it, warming up his chilled lungs and the turgid blood that ran through constricted veins, bringing it to other parts of his body. His shivering slowly subsided. They replaced the outer layer of blankets with warmer ones as needed, mindful of the blankets’ temperature, as they didn’t want to throw his body into shock. Once his shaking became less violent, her staff was quick to get an IV into him, the room temperature saline liquid helping him even further from the inside.

Gin’s trembling finally ceased after two hours, but Unohana was hardly relieved. He broke out into a sweat now and his skin went from pale white to bright red and feverish. His laboured breathing left no doubt in her mind that he was getting sick, most likely with pneumonia. For good measure, they added an antibacterial dose to his IV and drew blood samples to test for anything specifically dangerous he may have picked up.

“You were supposed to be in bed half an hour ago.”

Unohana felt her back stiffen and she turned to face her husband. The rest of her staff had cleared out already, and for that, she was thankful. She had a feeling things might just get ugly. She was very upset right now, despite her calm outer appearance.

“For what reason did you deem it necessary to do this to him?” she asked, ignoring his complaint about her whereabouts. “He is going to be hospitalized for at least a week, maybe longer if he has a relapse.”

She was tempted to invent a lie that might just keep him there longer and might have if it wasn’t against her code of ethics. Aizen closed the distance between them and looked down at the still-quivering form of his former subordinate, taking in his fevered appearance and his fight to breathe through fluid-filled lungs. She had just finished injecting a dose of dextrose into the IV line when Aizen had walked in. Gin’s breath was so cold still that it wasn’t even steaming up the inside of the mask.

To her surprise, Aizen seemed confused, but he hid it quickly enough. He was a very sharp person and as such, had probably already deduced what had happened. He also appeared very displeased, and for once, she didn’t think he was angry at either Gin or her.

“The doors to your balcony were still open.”

It was more a statement more than a question, but she answered in the affirmative anyway.

Aizen turned around and walked back to the door, stopping as he reached it.

“He is stable and you have an efficient staff. Be in bed by the end of the hour.”

Before she could protest, he was gone. A part of her was relieved that they had escaped punishment. Another part of her felt sorry for whoever had failed to let Gin know he was supposed to close the doors. She felt slightly sickened with herself for hoping it had been one of the Arrancar guards and not one of the terrified female servants. Torture for anyone, for any reason, was a vile thing.

Still, she had escaped punishment for talking back to her ‘husband’, at least for now, and Gin was stable enough that most of her Division could see to his care. This was a bad case, but not the worst they had ever seen by far. Still, it was with regret that she had to turn from him and make her way home for the second time that night.

Her chambers were warm, no doubt thanks to Kido, and someone had finally, firmly latched the balcony doors and pulled down the heavy curtains. Someone also replaced the missing blanket. She’d heard the distant sound of screaming when she’d walked through the front gate of the Palace, and once again felt sick at herself for noting the voice had been male. That meant there was a good chance the culprit _had_ been one of the Arrancar.

Aizen was at her chamber door at the time he’d indicated. There were no signs on him that would indicate that he had been doing anything other than paperwork or some other menial task before he arrived.

“You are upset with me,” he noted.

She sometimes wished she wasn’t such a peacekeeper, because that comment could open up a thousand and one issues she had with him.

“You know I do not enjoying the suffering of others,” she responded diplomatically, “…especially when there is no reason for it.”

“Indeed. It has been some time since his last infraction, and he has served us well in the last few years,” Aizen noted as he shed his own clothing, folding it neatly and setting it aside before approaching her.

His arousal was already fully up and she knew it wasn’t her doing. It disgusted her to think that torture turned him on so much. She was his wife by force, as he had threatened to annihilate her entire Division had she not agreed, and he was hardly faithful. Most of the time he partook of the servant girls, engaging them in the more violent sex he preferred, sending them to her for healing afterwards. She suspected that he was brutal with them, not only because he had a fetish for such things, but because doing so sent a message to her, telling her that he could do this to her and there was nothing anyone could, or would, do to stop it.

He was even more violent to his other, male partners than he was with the girls. Unlike the servant girls though, he only raped his male victims when he felt they’d done something worthy of punishment. Thankfully, it had been some time since he last forced himself on either of his two preferred victims. Szayel had managed to weasel out from under him via the Claim Grimmjow had on him, as the master felt the emotions of the victim and the Arrancar made a compelling argument to leave most future punishments in the hands of the Sixth Espada and his mate. Then there was Gin, who had not been as fortunate. She still occasionally found him curled up in his cubby with his thighs stained red with blood and semen. It hadn’t happened nearly as often as it had near the beginning, but it still occurred when Aizen’s mood was particularly foul.

Unohana wished she could beg her husband for so many things on Gin’s behalf, but she decided to settle for the most basic. There were three things every creature needed to survive; food, shelter, and warmth. Gin had the first two, although she was certain that Gin was very tired of eating plain rice. She tried to sneak some other things in for him on occasion, mild things that could not be smelled on his breath and thus betray her kindness to him.

“Is there a reason to continue to deny him clothing?” she asked

“Does his nudity offend you dear, and if so, why have you not mentioned it before?”

She almost remarked that it was difficult to see his mutilated body, but caught the words before they left her lips. Jushiro had once commented how painful it was to see others suffering and in response Aizen slashed his eyes out. Fortunately, battle-honed reflexes caused Jushiro to flinch slightly and Szayel’s amazing skills had salvaged one of the two damaged eyes. Still, Jushiro had had to learn how to fight all over again with his now handicapped depth perception.

There were no more words as her husband climbed over her body. She shifted her hips to allow him to settle between them and turned her attention to the ceiling. As with every night he laid with her, silently she prayed that she would remain barren as he entered her with practiced ease. It stung tonight, as she hadn’t been prepared. The tool that usually did so lay bundled up at the 4th Division. There was no pleasure for her in the act as Aizen thrust into her. This was a job on both their parts, nothing more. Her body mattered only in that it accepted his semen.

He finished with her quickly and left shortly, saying nothing. She desperately wanted to return to her own Division, but instead remained prone for ten minutes before finally getting up and heading towards the bathroom to shower his filthy touch away.

As much as she despised Aizen, he was right in that her Division could easily care for Gin without her hovering over them. It had been a long day and she needed her rest. Gin was unlikely to wake up before noon, if he was lucky.

She cast a sad look towards his cubby, noting the only things there right now were his dog dishes, one half-full of water that still had ice around the rim and the other his empty rice dish, and Shinso. She hadn’t even thought to grab his Zanpakuto in her rush to get him to the safety of the 4th Division.

To most people it would be silly to think of a sword as being sentient, but a Shinigami knew better. She felt Minazuki touch the back of her mind, her own Zanpakuto imparting what little comfort he could give. She strode over to the cubby and picked up Shinso, bringing the blade back to bed with her.

“It’s alright,” she soothed. “He’s safe and recovering as we speak. I’ll bring you to him tomorrow morning when I go into work.” Minazuki sent her a wave of approval as she spoke to the other Zanpakuto.

She didn’t normally bring Minazuki to bed with her either, but tonight she did, holding both Zanpakuto close as she gave in to her own exhaustion. She knew Zanpakuto could speak to each other on rare occasions, and she hoped that holding them both close would permit Minazuki to communicate with Shinso. Sometimes, she wondered if Kyoka Suigetsu was as twisted as her master or if the Zanpakuto’s spirit suffered in Aizen’s hands at all of the evil the blade had been forced to commit over the centuries.

Gin was almost positive he was dead. There was no other explanation for why he felt so warm and safe, as if he floated on a bed of clouds. His only regret was that Unohana had to find his corpse curled up in her bedroom floor in a naked, frozen heap, and that he had been unable to avenge the crimes Aizen had committed against Rangiku.

Then he felt a wave of warmth rush through him, and it took a moment before he realized it was coming from Shinso. He opened his mind to his Zanpakuto, awakening in his inner world. He had barely manifested before the small fox spirit jumped into his arms, whimpering and shivering. He glanced about his inner world and gave off a little sigh.

It looked like Antarctica, minus the penguins. A deep blanket of snow hid the wreckage of his inner world. The effect was like a bit of bandaging on a terrible wound. Eventually, the snow would melt, revealing the devastation Aizen had wrought on his soul when it retreated. For now, at least, it was almost scenic. Even the dead persimmon trees appeared pretty with their layer of white icing.

He could hear a voice calling for him and reluctantly he exited his inner world. It took a major effort to open his eyes. Unohana hovered over him, as did another Shinigami who was clearly from the 4th Division. This was definitely not her room and he quickly learned where he was. He was in one of the medical rooms and wrapped in several blankets, which explained the warm, secure, blissfully peaceful feeling.

“How are you feeling Gin?” she asked worriedly.

“ ‘ight,” was all he managed to get out.

He tried to move his arm only to find it restrained. A glance down showed the IV lines even as the assistant moved to loosen the restraints now that he was awake and unlikely to pull them out in his slumber.

“That’s good,” she offered him a warm, gentle smile, “but it’s probably the drugs. You picked up a nasty case of hypothermia, but we managed to get you warmed up without sending your body into shock. You will be happy that there was no frostbite, so all your fingers and toes will stay where they are.”

That took him by surprise. He felt comfortable now and not sick at all other than the deep feeling of fatigue. He wanted to curl back up into the warmth and comfort and fall asleep again.

He tried to ask how long it had been, but she shushed him before he could even attempt to get the first word out.

“I found you two nights ago. It’s evening, almost time for me to return home,” she informed him sadly. “You have pneumonia, but the drugs and the healing Kido will keep you comfortable while your body fights it off. It could have been infinitely worse.”

He wished she could stay here next to him, but he understood. The only time Aizen ever excused her from ‘servicing’ him was during or right after a battle.

“The medical protocol requires all victims of hyperthermia to stay for at least three days upon regaining consciousness so I can give you that time, at least. I want you to sleep, rest, and recover as much as you can,” she ordered.

Gin could hardly believe it.

Three days! He had three whole days to drift in this paradise of warmth! He would be able to sleep in and he might even get to eat something other than plain rice! Maybe he had died after all.

Of course, there was always the chance Aizen would order him back before the three days were up. Quickly tossing that thought aside, he found himself infinitely more comfortable as Unohana removed his restraints completely and took away the oxygen mask. Unohana stayed long enough to remove the catheter, a very uncomfortable thing, and helped him stumble to the bathroom. She tucked him back into bed afterwards before sternly ordering him to sleep. It was an order with which he happily complied. Finally, she set Shinso down beside him and his hand automatically clutched the sheath of his Zanpakuto. He felt the soft pulse of Kido and that was the last thing he knew.

He woke up several other times, usually when the blankets surrounding him were being replaced by more warmed ones, but would fall asleep quickly afterwards. The smell of miso soup woke him the next morning and he had to fight not to down the whole thing like a wild dog. Even something as simple as warm soup sent his taste buds leaping for it had been so long since he’d eaten anything else.

He spent most of those three days sleeping, waking up only to eat and use the bathroom. Plain white rice never crossed his lips in those three days either. In fact, his meals omitted it altogether. He would have worshiped Unohana had she asked it of him.

Regrettably, his reprieve passed far too quickly and on the third day, she approached him with a sad expression on her face, letting him know that his respite was over. He accepted the simple white kimono and reluctantly pulled it over his thin and scared body before following her home that evening.

As soon as they were back in her suite, he went to remove the clothing, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him.

“I managed to convince my husband that such was no longer necessary, as well as a few other things,” she nodded towards his cubby.

The blanket was back. It was the same one given to him fifteen years ago but right now, he couldn’t care less. It was a blanket, something to keep him warm at night. He felt tears threaten the corners of his eyes, a threat that became realty when warm hands pulled his head against her chest and simply held him as he sobbed.

Had he not had the dark and painful past that he did, he might have felt a little more self –loathing for reacting so strongly to something as simple as clothing and a blanket. He’d grown up in a District where neither was easy to come by and simply possessing one or more of them could get a person killed. As such, he knew their true value and he didn’t want to know what Unohana had negotiated away for their return.

“Come, Aizen should be getting home soon.”

He nodded his head and straightened up, a hint of his old grin on his face.

“Wouldn’t wanna dis’point Kami-sama now would we?”

He could use a bath right anyway, and the one he bathed her in was always nice and warm and smelled nice. Never mind that Aizen would be waiting for them and there was no telling what kind of mood he might be in.

“No, we wouldn’t,” Unohana agreed.


	7. Re-Claimed

It was late and Jushiro was tired, but with the Defence Net down fatigue seemed to be the new ‘normal,’ as were these meetings. This one included both the Espada and acting Taichou. Normally Aizen kept these military meetings separate, but where the Swarm was concerned Aizen liked to have all of his ‘weapons’ in one room. At least Aizen had given them permission to speak during these sessions; meaning Jushiro didn’t need to worry about coming home with new stripes on his back for bring up a much-needed point.

The few, small probing attacks hadn’t lasted long before a full contingent of the Swarm came down upon them again every three days. It was, perhaps, worse than what had been going on before the Net went up five years ago.

“If the Swarm can afford to continue sending such large-scale attacks against us, why didn’t they just send their entire military might the first time?” Nanao wondered aloud.

It was a very valid question, and one that had been bothering pretty much all of them. If the sheer numbers thrown against them on a tri to quad daily basses were to come all at once they would easily be overrun. So why did they only come every three or more days?

“Perhaps those Scarabs Ulquiorra discovered only permit a certain number to get through before their power fades.” Harribel suggested. “They may only be able to maintain the portal for so long before they grow tired,” she added.

“That makes a great deal of sense,” Szayel agreed.

“Then why not just send more Scarabs to increase the number of portals?” Toshiro questioned.

Toshiro’s questioned raised a few eyebrows, since it appeared he was questioning his mistress, but she didn’t appear to take any offence to his analysis of her theory and gave him a pleased nod at the question.

“Perhaps there are a limited number of portal-makers,” Ulquiorra offered.

“That is one possibility. Something that large would take time to grow, not to mention be difficult to hide in large numbers,” Szayel mused.

“Why are we talking about this shit? What does it matter how many there are? They are just pathetic bugs I need to scrap off my shoe every few days,” Yammy grunted.

Jushiro often wondered how someone as idiotic as Yammy had managed to survive his Gillian stage to become as powerful as he was, especially because it took time for the moron’s overwhelming power to come to bear. Karin had one time muttered something about ‘hulk’ but he failed to understand the Living World reference and she hadn’t elaborated. He got the feeling that it wasn’t a compliment.

“It prevents us from doing our duties, and the stability of the Realms depends on the balance of souls,” he explained as patiently as he could.

“Not my fucking problem,” Yammy grunted. “Although, the fucking that comes after it is always good,” Yammy laughed.

That caused the Shinigami present to feel a moment of disgust and discomfort, and even a few of the Espada gave Yammy a less than pleased look, although Jushiro was not sure all of the displeasure had to do with the blatant disgust on how Yammy treated his pet so much as it was in his language.

“It is a problem because if the Realms collapse, there will be nothing left in existence,” Ulquiorra explained dryly, with the air of someone who had dealt with this sort of thick-headedness many times before. “It means that you would cease to exist.”

Yammy regarded them with an expression that failed to distinguish him from a potted plant. Jushiro refrained from any further explanations, instinctively knowing it would do little good, though Harribel gave it one last, valiant effort.

“This is why Aizen-Kami didn’t simply didn’t extinguish the Shinigami Divisions. They are necessary to maintain the balance between realms.”

“Have the recently-acquired specimens delivered up any new data, Szayel?” Unohana asked, her words, thankfully, bringing the conversation back on-topic.

“They’re intriguing by themselves, but have neither revealed anything about the Swarm’s origins nor do we have any clues as to what they’re after. The one Ajuga, Hana and Diaemus brought in is vastly different from the rest we have seen so far. This one has a considerably different brain design. A pity it was brought in dead, but at least I have confirmed some things from the corpse,” Szayel answered.

“And what might that be?” Aizen prompted.

“They definitely have a hive mind and, based on what I have seen once I dissected the General’s cerebellum, I suspect are somewhat telepathic. If one member of the Swarm learns of something, the others are quickly informed. Whether they communicate entirely by telepathy, of whether there are also visual cues or pheromones at play as well is unclear right now. I also believe there is a range to their ability to communicate, but I have not been able to determine the distance.”

“Is there a way to block that link?” Unohana asked.

“I would need to see it in action before I could develop such a method, Unohana-sama. I am not certain what tactical advantage it would give us anyway. We already know that the Generals rarely come onto the field and they seem content to keep throwing the drones at us.”

“Do you believe they will try to tunnel past our defences again?” Starrk asked sleepily.

“I am not certain. This was the first time since the invasion started that we have seen insects along the lines of the two other types. After dissection, I’ve concluded that their sole purpose was to bring the Net down from the inside. Either it took the Swarm this long to think of such a tactic, or it took this long for them to breed them. They may even be low in numbers and might be worth something to Swarm, something not worth risking unless absolutely necessary, like the Portal Scarabs.

“We know nothing of the Swarm‘s home dimension. For all we can determine these new specimens could even be the equivalent of mercenaries. The only true way to learn more would be to capture one of these ‘Generals’ alive and interrogate it. We know they speak our language because Karin-sama heard them do so the first time they showed up.”

“Oh?” Aizen questioned, suddenly interested.

“It was in the report ten years ago,” Szayel answered in a fear tinged voice.

“How are the depth sensors coming along?” Aizen’s change of subject seemed to make Szayel relax a little, but only a little.

“We have already deployed several hundred in all directions and we’re now closing the gaps. At present it will be pure luck if they dig past any of the sensors, but it’s better than no warning at all.”

“Are we done listening to this shit now?” Yammy demanded. “We have heard all this crap before.”

“He’s got a point.” Nnoitra rolled his eyes, as if agreeing with the Tenth Espada annoyed him to some degree. “Nothing is more annoying than listening to prissy-boy here rambling on about his work.”

“I am not prissy,” Szayel huffed.

Jushiro held back another frustrated sigh as the meeting dissolved into yet another bitch fest between several of the Espada. It was getting late and all he wanted to do was head home to sleep. He glanced to his side and noted that it would appear that Starrk was already sleeping. He almost wished he dared, but he didn’t want to know what Aizen would do if he was caught not paying attention. It was one thing for their Masters to be disruptive; it was another thing for the slaves to do so.

He forced his thoughts away from that subject before he could begin to dwell on it. It was much better not to recall that they were all possessions now, both to their Masters and to Aizen’s fickle whims.

“Enough,” Aizen eventually called the meeting back to order. “Each species has its own unique reiatsu, does it not?”

“Yes, Kami-sama, but that field is so infinitesimal that you have to practically be on top of them to detect it,” Szayel replied. “You would have better luck finding a butterfly than any member of the Swarm.

The room was silent for a moment before Starrk suddenly broke it.

“Karin,” he stated simply.

All eyes turned his way, most of them in confusion. Even Jushiro couldn’t understand what Karin had to do with this, but the sudden look of astonishment on Szayel’s face, followed by a look of glee, indicated that at least one person at the table knew where the First was going with the comment.

“Of course!” Szayel exclaimed, obviously catching on to Starrk’s idea right away.

“What about the bitch?” Nnoitra growled and Grimmjow hissed at the Fifth for insulting his mate.

“She can physically see reiatsu,” Starrk explained.

“What good does that do us when you said the amount they had is infant… Infitest…. Small?” Yammy demanded.

“The first time the portals opened she saw them,” Szayel explained. “In fact, she was able to spot them while resting. If she were to meditate, she might be able to spot them opening from here, and then someone fast like Starrk or Ulquiorra could get to them in time, perhaps take one alive. If I could study a live specimen I might be able to isolate the energy used to make the portals and counter it, or at least set up a warning system to alert us the moment the portals open and where they open,” Szayel exclaimed excitedly.

“Summon your mate, Grimmjow,” Aizen ordered.

“She’s probably sleeping,” the Sixth responded, eyes narrowing a little.

Grimmjow was clearly not happy with Karin suddenly at the center of Aizen’s attention, and Jushiro didn’t blame him, but he also couldn’t blame Starrk for bringing the idea up. As much as it sometimes hurt, the good of the body was more important than the good of a single person.

Aizen turned his gaze Grimmjow’s way and everyone in the room abruptly felt the weight of Kami-sama’s reiatsu, even if they weren’t the ones targeted. Grimmjow’s only concession to the discomfort of the growing energy pounding into him was a small, pained hiss before finally relenting and informing Aizen he was summoning her.

“Karin’s vision is limited,” Jushiro spoke up into the suddenly oppressive silence. “She has duties to perform as well. She will not be able to ‘watch’ for invaders at all times,” he pointed out, hoping that he could at least keep this potential responsibility from burning out the young woman.

The Tercera, in her quiet manner, proposed a compromise.

“The Swarm makes a raid approximately every three days,” Harribel stated. “If Karin’s ability to see reiatsu extends far enough, I would suggest getting her to start looking in two days’ time. Sooner or later she will catch the portals.”

“Indeed,” Aizen agreed. “If she can’t detect her target from here, she will simply have to go further a field. As most of the attacks seem to come from the North, we’ll start by deploying her in that direction. While we wait for her arrival, what else have you learned about the new specimens?”

“Not much worth reporting. Their musculature and their exoskeletons are quite sturdy, capable of moving a great deal of earth in a very short amount of time. Had Ajuga, Hana and Diaemus not been at the tower to reactivate the alarms, these new specimens would have destroyed all of the towers they infected before bringing the Net down. We would have never known we were under attack until they were in the city,” Szayel reported.

The thought terrified Jushiro. His family was out in those Districts, sent there to keep his mother and his younger siblings from the attentions of Aizen and the invading Arrancar forces, and from Starrk. Many of his younger siblings would not have been able to withstand the Espada’s reiatsu even though the man himself showed no interest in harming anyone, unless Aizen’s orders said otherwise. It was best if his family stayed out of the picture.

Karin arrived shortly, a look of sleepy irritation on her face as she walked over to stand beside Grimmjow.

“Ah, Karin…” Aizen greeted her warmly, “…how good of you to come.”

“I trust there is a good reason as to why I was summoned, leaving Hana, Ajuga and Lilynette unattended?” she questioned.

Several people in the room shivered, chief among them Starrk. Those three could get into serious trouble when left unsupervised for more than an hour.

“We would not want that,” Aizen smirked in amusement. “Fortunately, this will not take overly long. How far have you managed to train your ‘sight’ since last we spoke of it?”

Karin scrubbed the sleep from her eyes, frowned at the question, and didn’t answer right away, although Jushiro felt that was because she was thinking it over rather than being deliberately disrespectful. Aizen must have thought the same thing for he patiently waited for her answer, taking a sip of his tea as he did so.

“I am not certain Aizen-kami,” she answered honestly. “It depends on who I am tracking. Someone like Starrk-sama I could see much further away than someone like, say Tesra-san.”

“Remember the day by the lake, when you saw the portal opening?” Szayel prompted. “Think back.”

Karin turned her attention his way and gave a nod of her head, indicated she remembered the event.

“How far away do you think you could spot something like that again?”

“Again, I am not sure. I haven’t had much chance to measure the distance. I do know I can ‘see’ Grimmjow,” she replied and nodded at her mate, “some distance out of the city without needing to enter Jinzen, but I am also intimately familiar with his reiatsu and know what to look for. The portal was a lot less bright but I might be able to spot one if I was looking at the right place at the right time,” she bit her lip nervously before turning back towards Aizen, as if uncertain that she wanted to say more.

“If you recall, Kami-sama, I did spot the ones that opened up not far from Ulquiorra-sama when we last tested my vision. He was far from the city’s borders, but again I had been tracking a familiar reiatsu and more or less stumbled across it.”

“Indeed,” he agreed. “Starrk, please take Nanao and one of Szayel’s communicators with you. Head due west, dropping her off every twenty kilometres and moving away from her. Karin, you will track Nanao and tell us when you are unable to see her anymore,” Aizen ordered, lacing his fingers together. His stance told everyone in the room that there would be no arguments about this.

Starrk looked less than pleased, an emotion mimicked on Nanao’s face, but neither one of them objected to the order. Both of them accepted a communicator from Szayel before exiting the meeting hall.

Karin took a seat next to Grimmjow and started to relax, entering into the familiar state of Jinzen, a state he had taught her so many years ago. She had never discovered a Zanpakuto, which was the original intent in teaching her the technique, but it still served her well.

“Do you need us for this boring shit?” Yammy questioned after a minute of silence.

“Got somewhere to go?” Nnoitra demanded in a huff.

“More like a body to fuck,” Yammy smirked, and then scowled. “I never got to finish playing with my pet before the meeting was called.”

“Four hours and you were not done yet! Your pet clearly doesn’t know how to please you,” Nnoitra sneered.

“Maybe the real issue is you just don’t got the stamina to keep fucking your broad for that long,” Yammy countered.

“This is not a topic acceptable for a war meeting,” Ulquiorra interjected.

“What, your bitch not giving you any?” Nnoitra asked the Fourth with a sneer.

Ulquiorra blinked those unnerving green eyes at the Fifth.

“My relationship with Orihime is none of your concern. She does, however, come willingly to my bed.’

“Oooo, nice one,” Grimmjow chuckled softly. “He got it from me though, so of course it w… oof!” he was cut off as Karin elbowed him smartly in the stomach, despite still being in a small trance.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Nnoitra demanded with a curl of his lip. “You think I can’t get my broad into bed without using the Claim?”

“Well, you do got that chain on ‘er...” Yammy grunted and the Fifth turned his one-eyed glare on the Tenth.

“From what I have heard, I ain’t the only one that’s got my pets in chains,” Nnoitra smirked. “The only difference is, I don’t make her parade about the public in them. Although,” Nnoitra suddenly laughed, “got to admit your bitch looks good in ‘em.”

“You should try some of the shit out in those books of hers. Some of the best fucking I’ve ever had,” Yammy laughed.

Jushiro wanted to cover his ears with his hands. He didn’t want to listen to this conversation. Judging by the pained look on Toshiro’s face, the young man didn’t want to hear it either, the topic centered on his ex-Fukutaichou and long time friend, one whose master hadn’t always treated her nicely. Karin was twitching as well.

“Ulquiorra is correct, this is not an appropriate topic, least of all in a meeting before Kami-sama,” Harribel interjected, this time with more force.

Anyone with half a brain could feel the chill in her voice. Perhaps it was something she’d picked up from the young man sitting next to her. Thankfully, it had the intended effect.

“Che,” Nnoitra and Yammy said at the same time, ending this round of bickering and snickering at least.

Jushiro silently thanked the blonde and even Toshiro shot his mistress a grateful look. She had probably been able to feel his distress and if it was one thing Jushiro had learned over the last five years, it was that the two were becoming closer; much like how himself and Starrk stood on even ground despite the Claim.

Barragan had remained rather quiet the entire meeting, a look of supreme boredom on his elderly features. Jushiro was just tired and punchy enough to picture the Second opening his mouth and telling everyone to get the hell off of his lawn.

“We have come to the first stop,” Starrk’s voice came over the radio Szayel had been playing with.

“Excellent. Karin?” Aizen turned his gaze her way.

“I can see Nanao-Taichou clearly,” she answered. “I would suggest another fifty kilometres instead of twenty. I am not even deeply in trance and I see no point in wasting time going every twenty when she registers this well.”

“Agreed, Szayel, if you would?”

Szayel relayed the information over the radio. Now that the two were out of the city getting from point to point took less time since there were far fewer obstacles in their path. At each point Karin relayed her information.

“It’s getting harder to see her without going really deep into trance,” Karin finally announced almost an hour later after the experiment had started. “I can still see Starrk-sama easily, but Nanao-Taichou is getting really fuzzy.”

“How far out are they?” Aizen demanded.

“About 400 kilometres from the edge of the city, well beyond our warning systems,” Szayel answered. “No one other than Starrk would be able to travel that far so quickly.”

Starrk was the fastest of them all and the distance he had easily traveled in an hour would have taken all of the other Espada a day, maybe more.

“Indeed,” Aizen agreed. “You may order them to return.”

Szayel did so. Aizen turned his full attention to Karin, who blinked a little as she came out of the meditative state.

“We need to obtain one of these Portal Scarabs. Starting in two days you will enter Jinzen and attempt to spot these portals, at which time you will alert Starrk and Ulquiorra to their co-ordinates so that they may attempt to procure one. Ulquiorra,” Aizen turned his attention towards the Fourth “…you will leave in stealth and wait until the Swarm has carried on, upon which time you will incapacitate and secure one of the Scarabs.”

“As you wish, Aizen-kami,” the green-eyed Arrancar said.

“I shall inform Starrk when he returns. The rest of you are dismissed for tonight.”

Everyone stood and bowed with a chorus of ‘yes, Kami-sama’ before departing. Jushiro did not move, however. He waited for Starrk’s return, sending Karin a reassuring smile when she looked at him in concern.

“Is there something you wished to speak to me about, Jushiro?” Aizen asked.

“No, Kami-sama, I am merely waiting for my master’s return,” he answered. “Starrk-sama indicated that he wished to see me about something this evening,” he added before Aizen could further question him.

“I see. May I trust you to inform your master of his mission? My wife is waiting for me after all.”

“Yes, Kami-sama,” he bowed, ignoring the comment about his long time friend Unohana. Letting it get to him would be a waste of time and would do nothing for her.

“So be it. Good night, Jushiro,” Aizen bade as he rose and left the room.

“Good night, Kami-sama,” he responded.

This left him alone in the room. Jushiro, subjected to the bickering between ill-tempered Espada this evening, relished the peace and quiet. It allowed him to ground himself a bit as well. Sitting there, he imagined he was back in a world that had long since ceased to exist. With the hall and the late Soutaichou’s chair empty, it was easy to pretend that the Winter War had yet to occur. He half-expected to see a tall, familiar dark-haired figure in that ridiculous pink and white flowered haori of his waltz into the room, sake bottle in hand, humming a tune whose lyrics he knew better than to sing out loud lest they earn him a swat from Nanao-chan. If he concentrated, he could almost hear Shunsui’s footsteps. In the end, to his regret, the humming vanished and his breathing remained the only sound in the room.

When he judged that enough time had passed for Starrk to return with Nanao, he got to his feet and met them by the front doors. Jushiro passed Aizen’s orders on before falling into step beside Starrk as they walked back to the Estate. Nanao took his other side.

“I fear this may exhaust Karin.” Nanao frowned. “It’s a lot of territory to cover on top of her other duties.”

“She would probably argue that it’s worth it. If we can detect the portals, we could close them before too many get through,” Jushiro pointed out.

“Perhaps,” Nanao reluctantly agreed.

They made it back to the Estate, which was thankfully still in one piece. So far, it seemed like the girls hadn’t even noticed Karin had slipped out; Hana busied herself with some complex mathematics that Szayel had given her. Ajuga had her calligraphy set out and appeared to be planning some new poetry piece and Lilinette lay on her stomach with a pad of paper and coloured pencils, rendering what looked like the aftermath of a particularly gruesome battle. It was a frightfully quiet evening after such a nerve wrenching meeting.

Jushiro followed Starrk to his own suite while Nanao joined her daughter and the other girls in the main living room. The game of shogi that he and Starrk had engaged in, off and on, for the last few days was still set up and when Starrk took one side of the board, Jushiro took the other. He was good at the game, thanks to hours playing against Shunsui and Yamamoto, but he had never been as good as those two when it came to overall strategy.

 _Oh Shunsui, you stupid, self-sacrificing fool_ _…_ _You should be the one here, not me,_ he couldn’t help but to think sadly. I _would truly have loved to see you and Starrk play a game, not to mention see you with Hana-chan._

“Jushiro,” Starrk called.

“Hmm, sorry, distracted,” he muttered as he looked at the board. “There has been a lot going on.” It wasn’t exactly a lie.

“Do you wish to simply proceed without relaxing first?” Starrk asked, looking up at him with heavy-lidded eyes.

“Proceed?” he questioned in confusion before what Starrk was getting at dawned on him. “Of course, I hadn’t even realized it was due,” he said softly. “I am sorry, but I don’t really feel like playing shogi tonight. Perhaps some tea though?” he suggested.

“Tea will be fine,” Starrk agreed.

“I will bring it to the room.”

Starrk nodded and rose before retreating into the bedroom while Jushiro made his way into the small kitchen all the suites had. He set the water going and looked through his stash, searching for the herbs he knew promoted relaxation and worked as anti-stressors.

 _Over a thousand years old and the only partner I_ _’_ _ve ever had is him,_ he couldn’t help but to think with a mixture of bitter amusement.

He’d had several girlfriends during his Academy years and even one or two after graduating. Then, he’d been promoted to the rank of Taichou. What little time he would have had to engage in romance evaporated after that. He’s dated and cuddled, but had never gone beyond that. He respected women too much to engage in one-night stands and he always, inevitably, had an attack long before he reached the point in the relationship that led to sex. Nothing was a bigger turnoff than seeing one’s boyfriend coughing up blood.

The hissing of the kettle interrupted his dim thoughts. There was something comforting in the simple task of preparing tea. He warmed the mugs with a little of the excess hot water before putting everything on a tray and bringing the lot of it into his bedroom.

Starrk was sitting on the futon, already naked. Jushiro set the tray down in the center of the futon before removing and hanging up his own clothing. By the time he joined Starrk on his futon both cups were full of tea. He picked up his cup and took a small sip, sighing in contentment. The tea helped to sooth his nerves, taking the edge off of the tension that, for him, always seemed to accompany this act. He took a deep whiff before letting out another sigh, letting some of his stress leave with the exhale. They finished their cups in companionable silence.

Jushiro stared at his now empty mug for several seconds before finally setting it back down on the tray next to the one Starrk had finished. Starrk moved the tray off of the futon, setting it on the small table nearby so it was out of their way.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Starrk asked.

The male half of the First Espada had asked him that question fourteen times before. Tonight was the fifteenth. Sometimes Jushiro wondered what Starrk would do if he said no.

 _Probably nothing,_ he guessed. _I_ _t is what Aizen would do to me if I let the Claim fall off I would need to worry about. Of course, there is always a chance that another Espada would attempt to Claim me by force._

He was strong, but a prolonged battle would wear him down. The only one he could think of who might make a go of it was Yammy and he definitely didn’t want to end up enslaved to that monstrosity. He would probably die before a month was out, given Yammy’s perchance for brutality, and while his tuberculosis was well into remission thanks to Karin’s help and Living World developments, he’d had the illness for so long that it had sunk stubborn roots in his lungs. Large amounts of stress still brought up the odd attack. It was nothing like before, but they were bad enough that Unohana still insisted he spend a night at the 4th Division when they did occur, just to make sure he wasn’t regressing.

“Jushiro?”

“Sorry, thinking again. Yes, I am sure I want to do this,” he answered the earlier question.

He shifted until he was on his hands and knees and brushed his hair to one side so Starrk could have access to the side of his neck. After repeated bites, the fang marks on his neck from the blood draining part of the ritual had faded into scars. It was one way that a non-Hollow could tell that another was Claimed. The bites usually ended up leaving at least a mark or two on the one taken.

Starrk’s fingers unscrew the lid to the jar of lubricant and after a second, the first oil slicked finger began to probe his entrance. Starrk was in no rush and took the time to prepare Jushiro’s entrance properly. It was always uncomfortable but at least it wasn’t painful. Jushiro silently bore with it.

It stung when the First finally penetrated him, his walls stretching to accommodate the Espada’s girth. He knew the pain would not last long, that blinding pleasure would soon take over. He felt Starrk’s overwhelming reiatsu begin to swirl around them and he forced his own to submit to that power. If he didn’t, the Claim would not last as long, which meant it would have to be refreshed sooner. Starrk pulled back, and then thrust in, sending a wave of his reiatsu into Jushiro’s body with it. A sensation that Jushiro could only describe as _absolutely carnal_ followed its wake and he had to bite his lip to stop the groan that wanted to escape his mouth.

Starrk set a firm and steady pace, both of their bodies rocking with the movement. Jushiro started to pant and his body broke out in a sweat as each forward thrust emptied another wave of reiatsu into his body. His hands curled into fists and he tasted blood as he bit his lip a little too hard in an effort to hold back his moans. His body began to tremble and he began to get a ‘stuffed’ feeling as Starrk poured more and more of his power into the body below his. It licked along his nerve endings, crawled over his skin and he could feel it with each calculated strike against his prostate. Fourteen years of practice had apparently taught Starrk exactly where to aim.

This was why a high-powered Hollow could not Claim a weak one. The recipient had to be able to handle their Claimer’s reiatsu as it rushed into them or they would perish. It was one reason why Starrk had never properly Claimed Nanao this way. She was a strong woman, but there was little guarantee that she would be able to take the kind of power that Starrk used to Claim Jushiro. Nanao was nowhere near as powerful as Jushiro and even the older Shinigami had issues with Starrk’s reiatsu levels.

There was a small pause in the pace and Jushiro braced himself for the end. Sharp fangs tore into his neck at the same time that his vision went white, his muscles clamping down on Starrk’s cock. He barely registered that they were both cumming as Starrk finished the Claiming ritual. It wasn’t until the last shudder of Starrk’s body against his that he realized he’d arched his back and his mouth was open in a silent scream.

He was prepared for the collapse afterwards and managed to let one arm go limp first, bringing them both down sideways so Starrk’s weight didn’t crush him, as had happened a time or two. The only sound in the room was that of two sets of lungs desperately panting for breath. Claiming left both participants exhausted and Starrk didn’t even have enough energy left over to untangle their bodies. It was uncomfortable, but Jushiro was too far-gone himself to remedy the situation. It took a good fifteen minutes before Starrk shifted enough to fall out of him and Jushiro grimaced at the feeling of cum running out of his body.

His futon was dirty now and considering the mess they had made of it, not to mention _what_ the mess consisted of, he couldn’t ask any of the women to clean it. He was too tired to do anything about it either. It had been a long day and his grip on consciousness slipped away without him noticing.

Jushiro woke with a slight start as something coarse, warm and wet ran across his thighs and rear. It took him a second to realize it was a warm washcloth. Starrk must have woken up as he was now cleaning them both. He probably should have stopped the First and taken over the chore himself, but he felt so drained that he drifted off to the not-unpleasant feel of rough cloth on his skin. The second time he woke up, he saw the pale winter sun streaming through the window. He found that odd since his room was on the west side of the Estate.

He looked around the room in confusion, not recognizing it at all. He used to know every corner of the Estate, since he’d spent a lot of time playing in each room as a child and the fact that this room seemed unfamiliar bothered him. Then Jushiro shifted and discovered the presence of another body next to him, a warm arm draped over his midsection, snuggled up behind him. He jolted upwards and twisted around to see who the hell was in bed with him.

“Uhhg. Either go back to sleep or get out so _I_ can go back to sleep,” a dishevelled Starrk ordered.

“Why am I in your room?” Jushiro asked softly.

“Your room was a mess.” Starrk answered, staring up at him with glassy, sleep-heavy, grey eyes as if the pale-haired man ought to have figured that one out on his own.

“Oh,” Jushiro replied and he couldn’t help blushing.

He didn’t argue the fact that waking up in a bed with clean sheets was preferable to waking up in a sex-soiled one. He dimly recalled waking up to Starrk cleaning them both up and he was grateful for that too. He’d woken up a couple of times over the years to the residue of their releases caked to his thighs and he could think of fewer things that disgusted him more than that.

“I should get going,” he announced and climbed out of bed. That only left one problem.

“Closet,” Starrk yawned before he could ask if he could borrow something to wear. Jushiro opened it and pulled out what looked like a bathrobe. It would have to do.

“Thanks.”

“And kill the light on your way out,” Starrk requested sleepily, scratching his bare chest with one hand.

“Sorry, not even Shunsui was ever able to find a way to destroy the sun, not for lack of trying mind you.”

The memories were pleasant ones and a smile touched his lips as he recalled the many, many mornings Shunsui had woken up with a horrible hangover thanks to over indulging the night before, and not all of them were from their academy days. The number of plots Shunsui had thought up to destroy the sun numbered in the hundreds, and some of them were rather amusing.

Starrk’s response was to mutter something about ‘curtains’ and pull the blanket over his head.

Jushiro closed the curtains before he left and made it back to his own room to find Karin in the middle of remaking his bed.

“Karin-chan, what are you doing here?” he asked embarrassed.

Karin rolled her eyes at him before answering.

“I’m tidying up. You both looked fairly burnt and the last thing we need is Ajuga-chan asking about the strong scent coming from your room when she brings you your afternoon tea.”

He hadn’t thought that far ahead and suddenly he was very glad that Karin had taken care of the ‘evidence.’

“Oh, how did… ah… were we loud?” he asked, a little nervously.

“Bright,” she answered.

“Bright? Oh, you mean, you saw…?”

He rubbed his reddening forehead with one hand, partly to cover up his thorough embarrassment. If she noticed it, she didn’t say anything.

“Yes. I know how exhausting Claiming can be. Aizen ordered me to rest for the next two days, presumably so that I’ll be in top form to start ‘looking’ for the portals. While I’m at home, I figured I would be nice and clean your room up for you.”

“It’s appreciated,” he assured her.

Grabbing his uniform, he disappeared behind one of the screens to change into it.

“Nanao has already left for work and she sent one of those black butterflies to Byakuya to let him know you would be in a little late today. Your breakfast is on the kitchen table and there’s some tea warming in the pot on the hearth,” she continued, as he got dressed.

“Compliments of Ajuga-chan?”

He could hear Karin pause and guessed she was smiling.

“Of course. Making your tea is a task she takes seriously, you know.”

“She is a marvellous child,” he replied.

That earned him a deep sigh.

“She’s not much of a child anymore,” Karin said reluctantly, then wondered aloud. “Was I ever that eager to grow up?”

“I don’t think you had much of a choice,” Jushiro answered softly, coming out from behind the screen, now fully dressed in his uniform.

“No, I guess not…” Karin agreed. “It’s just… she’s so careless and now that the Defence Net is down she’s been so eager to help fight against the Swarm that she’s going out onto the battle field no matter how much I tell her not to. All it would take is one scratch. One scratch, the simple taste of a drop of her blood and the Swarm will know she’s my daughter and that Royal Blood flows through her veins. She would become a target, just like me.”

Karin ground the heel of one hand against her temple in frustration.

“I want to tell her the truth, to warn her of the danger, but I fear she might let the truth slip out to the wrong person. You know how it is. The more people that know the less secure a secret becomes. I don’t think I would be able to handle it if anything were to happen to her.”

Jushiro nodded in understanding. It had been difficult letting Hana become a Shinigami, to know she could end up deployed to the Living Realm to fight Hollows. Now that she was part of a Division, her superiors expected her to complete all the duties required of a Shinigami, and that included fighting the Swarm.

“It’s a hard balance, isn’t it? We are so proud of them for their achievements, and yet we want to hold them back and keep them safe. How does Grimmjow feel about Ajuga fighting the Swarm?” he inquired as he retrieved the tea Ajuga had prepared for him.

Karin sighed.

“Proud. Happy. He’s excited that she is old enough to join the hunt now. He would never admit it, and would be upset at me for mentioning it, but I think he is worried as well. You know how much he loves Ajuga and he would never forgive himself if something were to happen to her. I don’t think he’s worried about the Swarm though. Ajuga… and Hana too, are growing up.”

That was another problem. It had eaten at the adults in the little makeshift household for some time now. Hana and Ajuga were getting old enough to draw the attention of Arrancar. Ajuga had some protection at least being an Espada’s daughter, and Grimmjow had quite the violent reputation, but Hana did not. Hana could hide herself well though and so far, no one had started looking her way, at least not yet.

“I understand. I worry about them both every day. At least Toshiro can keep an eye on Hana without being overly protective,” he pointed out.

“Very true,” Karin agreed, and then paused while tugging a clean pillowcase over one of the two pillows Jushiro kept on his futon. Her expression suddenly turned thoughtful.

“I wonder… do you think it would be possible to get Harribel to watch out for them as well? I don’t know her, but Toshiro hasn’t indicated to me that she’s abusive in any way when she does come up in our conversations. I can tell that he isn’t unhappy with her, if that says something. Apparently she is not so trusting of men and she’s very protective of her fraccion….” Karin trailed off, as if her thoughts had taken yet another turn into the land of ‘what-ifs’.

Jushiro considered it. He knew little of the lone female Espada either, but after fifteen years of observing her, he knew she rarely spoke unless she had something intelligent or reasonable to contribute, didn’t engage in the often-petty arguing that occurred so often among the shorter-tempered males and he had never seen a bruise or a mark on the young man she kept. If anything Toshiro seemed… almost content these days. At first he’d attributed that to Toshiro’s growth in height and a maturing of his looks, something he’d always been touchy about since his promotion to Taichou decades ago. Now Jushiro wondered if the change in the other’s demeanour involved his mistress.

“It’s not a bad idea, in theory. What’s your reasoning?” he asked.

“Well, fraccion are safe from Claiming, aren’t they?” Karin asked.

“As far as I understand yes, but you might want to confirm that with Starrk or Grimmjow.”

He felt a smile steal across his face as he caught on to her idea, and with the information he currently had, it seemed like a surprisingly sound one.

“I think I just might do that,” Karin exclaimed, and gave him a wide smile. “Now hurry up and eat. You are already late for work,” she admonished him.

“Yes Sir!” he responded, and saluted her smartly before tucking into breakfast.


	8. Double Request

Grimmjow did not like asking others for help, but in this case he grudgingly admitted that he needed assistance. Karin could not inform Ajuga about the things she would need to know as a mature, female Hollow and Lilinette wasn’t exactly a good source of information. Out of all the female Arrancar he knew, and he knew a number of them rather intimately, or he had at one time, Harribel was the most reliable, safe and least likely to make an issue over a request from him regarding the finer points of raising a daughter.

Then there was the other issue of protection. Karin had approached him with the idea of setting both Ajuga and Hana up as someone’s fraccion. He’d wanted to reject it outright until he gave it some serious thought and realized there was a lot of merit to it. Ajuga would never agree to be her father’s servant, nor Starrk’s, or Starrk-ji as the girls still referred to him. Szayel was out of the question, giving his somewhat demoted position as ‘Karin’s pet,’ despite the fact he still, technically, held his rank as an Espada. Unless both girls wanted to spend their time behind the security of the Science and Research Division’s’ walls, Szayel could offer little protection and the one person in that establishment he thought might prove a challenge to anyone trying to mess with the young women already had his hands full with Szayel’s runts. There was no way in hell that he would let Yammy, Nnoitra or Barragan anywhere near the girls, considering their natures.

That left Ulquiorra and Harribel. He would admit, grudgingly, to trusting Ulquiorra with his daughter and with Hana, but becoming his fraccion and the resulting change in their status would strain their relationship with Diaemus. That left Harribel.

Harribel was one woman he knew would do right by Ajuga and Hana. The Third Espada was very fond and protective of any female Hollow she ran across and she had the power to back up any threats she made. Unlike her unlucky predecessor, she also had no issue with dishing out some needed violence if necessary. If anyone would be willing to rip the balls off a man for looking at a woman the wrong way, especially one of her charges, it was Harribel.

He knew all of this, and even understood it on an intellectual level, but it didn’t make having to slink over to her place to ask for aid any easier. His pride and his ego were busy snapping at him for considering it and both continually barked at him about the whole thing on the way over. Grimmjow told those aspects of his psyche that they could go jolly well fuck themselves. He reminded them that this was for his _daughter_ and he would do damn near anything for her, even grovel. His second brain also reminded him that when he did things like this it always made Karin happy, and a happy Karin was an _amorous_ Karin.

That reminder seemed to mollify his more prideful and egotistical sides. His little vixen had learned some rather interesting _tricks_ over the years that she only used when she was very, very pleased with him.

 _Later_ , he admonished himself. _We_ _’_ _ll be rewarded_ _after I get this shit done. Aizen ordered her to rest so that means she_ _’_ _s just waiting back at the den for me and we got all day and night to play,_ he told himself with a lecherous smirk. However, he did make sure that the smirk was gone once he reached his target’s front door.

He arrived at the large house Harribel had claimed for her household. It wasn’t nearly as big as the one they lived in, but it was still decently sized and, interestingly, seemed a little more defendable. He guessed that ‘old habits die hard’ applied here. He walked up to the door and banged on it before taking a step back and waiting impatiently. The door slid open a moment later to reveal Mila Rose.

“What do you want?” she growled suspiciously.

“To talk to Harribel,” he replied, looking over his fingernails in an attempt to look nonchalant. “May I speak with her?”

It irritated him to be polite, since he had to work at it, but this was important. The dark-haired, dark-skinned woman glared at him a moment longer before stepping aside so he could enter. She led him through the house and out back where a large pond took up most of the courtyard. Harribel stood in the middle of it, soaking in water up to her midriff. From where he stood, Grimmjow could also tell she was naked. He had to hold back a shudder; he hated large bodies of water and he questioned her sanity at taking a dip during this time of year. It was the middle of winter for crying out loud! The water had to be freezing because blue-tinted ice ringed the entire edge of the pond.

“Harribel-sama, he wants to talk to you,” Mila Rose called to her mistress.

Harribel turned to face him, her sea green eyes boring into his sky blue. He returned the gaze, trying to appear as non-threatening and as casual as he could. It was one thing to break down and ask her for help; it was a completely different thing to do so in front of her blabber-mouthed fraccion.

“Thank you, Mila Rose, you are dismissed. Take the other girls to the market and pick up something for dinner,” she ordered. “Toshiro will be home at his usual time.”

Mila Rose looked like she was about to protest, but Harribel shifted her gaze to her fraccion and the girl’s mouth clacked shut. She stormed away, shooting him a wary, distrustful look as she walked by.

There were a thousand remarks he could have made to the departing fraccion’s back, but he managed to bite his tongue, barely. The Sixth was not here to stir up trouble and picking a fight with one of Harribel’s charges would not endear him to her in anyway.

Harribel exited the pond and wrapped a towel around her waist while he looked away. Her bone fragments covered at least some of her breasts, so she didn’t bother covering herself up any more than that.

“Why are you here Grimmjow?” she asked, tying the cloth around her hips the way one would a sarong.

“I…require your help with something,” he reluctantly admitted, figuring that honesty would get him the farthest in this situation.

She raised a golden eyebrow at him, but made no further comment, leaving it to him to explain himself.

“Ajuga….” he trailed off, suddenly embarrassed to have to have to resort to this conversation.

Her eyes suddenly lit up in understanding and she motioned for him to follow her back into the house. She held up one hand, indicating he should stop, slid back the door to a room he hadn’t realized was there and stepped inside, closing the door behind her. She emerged a few minutes later properly dressed in her usual uniform.

“Follow me please, Sexta” she asked and led him to what looked like a private study.

The room was warm, which helped put him at ease. Harribel motioned him towards a chair and then sat down herself. Then, to his surprise, she opened a drawer and pulled out a sake bottle and two small cups before filling them both.

“Let me guess. Your daughter will soon reach maturity and your human mate does not know what it means to be a Hollow female. She does not know how to cast Claims, how to counter unwanted Claims, and she does not understand what it means to take a mate,” Harribel filled in the blanks for him.

Grimmjow swiped the cup that he assumed was his and took a deep drink of the alcohol wishing what was in it was stronger than oolong.

“Yeah, all that shit,” he agreed, relieved he wouldn’t have to elaborate on a rather uncomfortable subject.

“And you wish for me to teach her these things?”

“It would be better than leaving it up to Lilinette,” he admitted grudgingly. “Kami only knows what she’ll tell the girls.”

Harribel let out a low, throaty laugh, a sound he had honestly never heard from her. Then again, when he usually encountered her there was little to find funny.

“I believe I can be of assistance in this case. I will talk to her about the things she needs to know. Shall I approach her on my own or would you sooner introduce us?”

“Whatever you think is the best way to go about it,” he shrugged.

“I shall approach her on my own then. Most girls would find it awkward to have their father hovering over them in matters such as these. Is there anything else, Grimmjow?”

Well, that was one bird down, now to kill the second one. He was still a little apprehensive over this idea, but it did make sense.

“Both Hana and Ajuga are getting older, and they are going to need protection soon.”

Oh how it hurt him deeply to even say such a sentence, to suggest to anyone that he could not protect his own child.

“I cannot always be there, not when Aizen sends us out on missions all the time…” he trailed off, uncomfortable with this next topic, even more so than with what he considered ‘girl stuff.’

Harribel waited patiently for him to continue and didn’t try to push him, for which he was thankful. She was one of the few Espada with whom he’d never had a conflict with and the deep ocean of patience within her was just one of the reasons why.

“It was actually Karin’s idea, what with me being Ajuga’s father and Starrk being her surrogate uncle. It would be just as awkward for Ulquiorra because of Diaemus. Nnoitra’s a fucking bastard and a little unstable…”

He was rambling now and he knew he was making a hash of what he wanted to say, but he tried anyway.

“Grimmjow, what is your mate’s request?” Harribel interrupted in that calm voice of hers, cutting him off.

“She was hoping that, if Ajuga and Hana agreed to it, you would take them under your wing,” he finally ground out.

“You mean as fraccion?” she asked, seeking clarification.

He gave his head a stiff nod.

“I see, yes this makes sense.”

“It’s just an idea for now, something to protect them since we all know no one can Claim another’s fraccion. Karin and Nanao wanted to hammer the details out with you if you think it might work,” he grumbled.

He really didn’t like the thought of his daughter being _anyone_ _’_ _s_ fraccion, but until she was older and finally came into her full strength, it would keep her tail safe from people like Yammy and Barragan. Actually, when he really thought about it, those were the only two he felt posed any real threat to his daughter, other than Aizen. Maybe some of the lesser Numerous might try something simply because they had more combat experience than Ajuga, but he was fairly confident that his daughter could hold her own against most of them until assistance arrived, and assistance was never too far away with Szayel constantly monitoring her via her bracelet.

 _At least he had better be if he knows what_ _’_ _s good for him,_ he thought firmly. He might not actually hold the little weasel’s Claim, but that wouldn’t stop him from pounding the guy if he let anything happen to Grimmjow’s little girl.

What an odd thought that was. To be _comforted_ knowing Szayel was keeping a close eye on his daughter. A decade ago he would have strangled himself for thinking such a wild thing.

“If it is alright with you, I will speak to Hana and Ajuga about this first before working out the details of the arrangement with their mothers. It would be best to see if they are even interested or willing to go through with the idea. I will not force them to take my protection against their will.”

That, Grimmjow told himself, was one of the many reasons he had agreed to talk with the Third. She was one of the most decent Arrancar out there, despite her often cold and aloof manner. He knew she cared for her charges. He’d seen what happened to those idiots that had made attempts on her fraccion. She’d even been the one to drag the two who had stupidly tried to snatch Vindula before Aizen and provided testimony against them. Those examples, left in many small pieces across the sands of Hueco Mundo and smeared across a cliff face in the Seireitei, justified his vow never to try to seduce any of the three girls into his bed, despite the fact he thought it might be easy to do so. He hadn’t been interested in any other chick since taking Karin, but there was once a time the thought of luring one of the Trés Bestias into bed had held some appeal. Now it seemed like the quickest way to becoming a throw rug or a wall hanging in Harribel’s well-appointed study.

“Is there anything else I can do for you Grimmjow?” she asked.

“No, I…” he really, really hated this part, but managed to force it out, “thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

He couldn’t see it, but something about the expression in her eyes told him she was smiling, and not in a mocking way either.

Toshiro stretched, wincing afterwards as several vertebras in his back popped. Such was the torment of those that spent hours hunched over a desk. The decommissioning of the Defence Net definitely caused an avalanche of cursed paperwork, and a large increase in the number of forms he hated filling out the most: death notices.

“Taichou, can I get you anything?” Hana asked worriedly. “Tea, perhaps?”

“No, I am fine,” he assured her.

There had been a few people unhappy about Hana getting the 7th Seat so soon after graduation, but she deserved it. In addition, the girl and paperwork seemed made for one another. In fact, never had the Division’s books been so balanced before nor had its finances ever been as stable. Nanao’s daughter apparently had more than her fair share of talent with numbers and letting her loose on the Division’s accounting had been a stroke of genius. He still wasn’t sure how she had managed to bring the mess up to date in such a short amount of time.

“Alright,” she said, and turned her attention back to the ledger in front of her, humming softly as her pen brushed across the pages as she recorded receipts and added up this month’s expenditures with her feet swinging in the air behind her.

They were in his office, but whereas he sat behind his desk, Hana preferred to work while sprawled out on the couch on which Matsumoto had once spent so much time recovering from her latest bender. He was glad Hana looked nothing like, nor acted like Matsumoto. It wasn’t because he didn’t like or didn’t miss his old Fukutaichou. He did miss her far more than he would ever admit to anyone, but it was easier for him to have the girl around _because_ Hana reminded him of no one but herself. It would be difficult to work with her had she resembled his unfortunate friend. Moreover, the fact she wasn’t into hiding large amounts of liquor in his office drawers and cabinets was a mark in her favour.

Toshiro turned back to his own papers and held back a depressed sigh. No matter how many of these he filled out, no matter how many years passed, doing these never got easier. Ukitake had once informed him that it never did, not even to those who had been doing it for over a millennium.

The door to his office opened without the intruder being polite enough to knock. He shot his glare up, mouth open to deliver a sharp admonishment about manners, but the words died in his throat and he straightened up instead.

She didn’t stop by often, leaving him to run his Division unimpeded. If she’d needed to speak with him about something personal she would have waited until he returned home to bring it up. Therefore, she was here in a professional capacity, under an order from Aizen, or whatever she needed wasn’t going to wait until suppertime.

His eyes looked down the hallway behind her and he discovered several gaping subordinates who had apparently forgotten that they had jobs to do. One dolt even had the temerity to forget where he was going while staring at Harribel’s legs and walked straight into a wall, missing his intended door entirely. Toshiro sent a death glare to the males of his Division openly ogling the third Espada.

“Get back to work,” he growled, letting his freezing reiatsu flood down the hallway.

“Yes Sir!” they shouted back, quickly finding somewhere else to be and rushing comically back to their offices.

He shook his head in exasperation and turned his attention back to his Mistress, who seemed unfazed over the whole incident though the light in her eyes when she looked at him was warm enough. However, considering the crew she normally had to deal with, she was probably long since used to such antics. Toshiro also considered that he might have become a bit more protective of her honour as well since they had taken their relationship up a few levels. He wouldn’t say they were ‘married’ or ’mated’ per say, but they were definitely ‘partners with benefits.’

“Harribel-sama,” he acknowledged her once he was sure his Division was once more collectively behaving itself. “What brings you here?”

“I want to speak with Hana. She is a member of your Division, correct?”

“Yes,” he agreed with a frown. “But why do you need to speak with her?”

He figured he knew Harribel well at this point, considering they had spent the last fifteen years living together. He didn’t think that there was anything malicious about her request, but it still made him uneasy. What business could an Espada, other than the First and the Sixth, possibly have with Hana?

“That is between me and her for now,” Harribel answered, though her tone wasn’t dismissive or cold. “Please summon her.”

“I am right here,” Hana called, popping her head up from the back of the couch.

The startled blonde turned to face the girl and Toshiro caught just a hint of embarrassment from his mistress, having failed to notice the one she was seeking was already present. Toshiro knew how well the girl could hide her reiatsu. She wasn’t as good as Ajuga, by her own admission, but her control was still quite admirable, as well as impressive.

“What can I do for you, Harribel-sama?” Hana asked curiously, her tone polite.

“I have a few things I would like to discuss with you and Ajuga. It involves a request on the part of your parents. Does your schedule permit you to drop by my Estate on your way home after work?” Harribel asked.

Toshiro made a mental note to make sure nothing detained the girl this evening. If his work did run late there were plenty of laggards outside of his office with plenty of time on their hands.

“Yeah, I don’t see any reason why not,” Hana frowned, tossing a confused look at her Taichou, as if expecting him to know why Harribel was suddenly interested in her. “Have you asked Ajuga yet or do you want me to let her know?”

“I will be speaking to her shortly.” Harribel turned her attention back to him. “I will see you both after work.”

Her voice, while still cool and professional, held just enough heat at the end to make him swallow, a little colour gracing his face for a brief second before he stamped down anything that might be misconstrued by his subordinate still perched on the couch.

With that, Harribel turned and left.

Toshiro shared a confused look with Hana before turning his attention, and reiatsu, to the idiots ogling Harribel as she exited the building. This time two of his unseated troops ran directly into one another. He realized he was going to have to write a bloody memo.

“Taichou, would you mind if I darted over the 5th for a moment? I don’t want to call Harribel-sama a liar, but I would feel more comfortable confirming that my mother actually did ask her to see me.”

“Deliver these reports while you’re at it,” he said simply, handing her a folder as a way of granting permission.

“Thanks. Want me to bring anything back?”

“No, I will be fine. You are dismissed.”

“Sir,” she said crisply and saluted before heading out.

He felt like he could trust Harribel, but Nanao’s confirmation would ease his mind as well. He also took comfort in knowing that he would be on hand and that Harribel didn’t intend to exclude him from whatever it was that was going on. He’d have been very suspicious if she’d sidetracked him. There wasn’t much he could do about things if she’d done so, of course.

He should have been working on his paperwork, but now he was thoroughly distracted, his mind caught up in wondering what Harribel could possibly want with Hana and Ajuga. It was another small relief when Hana returned with a few briefings tucked under her arm. He took them and set the envelopes aside for the moment.

“Well?” he prompted. Hana looked a little frustrated.

“Apparently Mother knows what this is about, but she wouldn’t tell me anything substantial. All she said was that the decision was for Ajuga and I to make and that Harribel-sama would fill us in tonight,” the girl replied.

Toshiro felt some of the worry sitting on his shoulders pick up its bags and leave the room. If Nanao knew what was going on and wasn’t upset about it, then it couldn’t be anything bad. That allowed him to get his mind back on the paperwork sitting on his desk. Whatever it was, he’d find out tonight. He was curious, but reminded himself that curiosity was a lousy secretary and that it had never managed to polish off a stack of death notices.

“So, what’s the verdict?” Ajuga asked curiously, as she hopped down from the examination table.

“You are still the marvellous specimen you were last time,” Szayel answered with a grin.

“And your favourite right?” she questioned in that jealous tone women used when they felt they were not the centre of attention.

“Why Ajuga-chan, whatever would possess you to think you were no longer my ‘favourite experiment?’” Szayel asked in a mockingly hurt voice.

“Those two for starters,” Ajuga replied and pointed over to where Abisara was running similar tests on his excited twin sister. “Then there is Diaemus-kun, and that new chick that’s knocked up. I am starting to think you are losing interest in me Szay,” she pouted.

“Never,” he assured her with a confident smirk. “You will always be my first, and the first is always special.”

“Papa, papa, papa! Abisara said I grew an entire inch!” Vindula exclaimed excitedly as she ran over to them.

“Excellent,” he smiled down at his daughter, reaching down and twirling a lock of her long black hair around his finger. He tugged it for emphasis and she giggled up at her father.

“What about you, Ajuga?” Vindula asked excitedly.

“I am pretty much grown up,” Ajuga smiled down at the young girl, who was already up to Ajuga’s waist.

Ajuga couldn’t remember if she was that tall at five years old, but she had spent a large amount of time running about on all fours and that made judging height a little bit more difficult.

“What about you Abisara?” Ajuga asked the male twin.

“I have grown by point seven six inches,” he responded. “If I follow a human pattern, I will attain greater height later on.”

“That’s my boy.”

“What about you D’mus?” Vindula asked.

“One point three centimetres,” he answered.

All of them were down here for their usual checkups, with the addition of a woman Ajuga had rarely seen. Whoever she was, she was both pregnant and silent. In fact, the stranger hadn’t uttered a single word since her arrival. All communications came from the Arrancar male hovering protectively over her shoulder.

Ajuga could tell she was Claimed, most likely by the male escorting her. More importantly, she could feel the latent power in this woman, a power that outstripped her Claimer and Ajuga couldn’t help but to wonder how he’d been able to Claim her in the first place.

She did recognize them both and knew that they served Barragan, an Espada she detested and was rather wary off, especially after that meeting in the park. She’d sent many a silent thank you to Ulquiorra for his intervention that day, and even a few un-silent ones when she knew her father wasn’t around to hear it. What she didn’t know, off the top of her head, were their names.

“Who are they?” Ajuga asked Szayel, half-whispering the question. “I have seen them around and at Aizen-kami’s little ‘family gatherings.’ I know they serve the ornery old bastard, but that’s about it.”

“Soi Fon and Ggio Vega,” he answered, looking over to where Nemu was running her own test on the woman, as it seemed to make her more comfortable.

“They don’t seem to be excited over the child. Even Ulquiorra showed more emotion over Diaemus,” she noted.

“Barragan informed them that if the child turned out to be worthless after it was born, he was going to dispose of it,” Szayel answered quietly so the others could not hear him.

Ajuga shot him a look of pure horror. The mere thought of it made her stomach coil in disgust.

“Why?” she blurted. “I mean, he was interested in me, why not in that child?” she questioned. “Or is it his after all?”

“No, the child belongs to those two. I cannot fathom what the ‘ornery old bastard’ is thinking. To waste such a perfectly good specimen like that… disgraceful.” He shook his head in disbelief.

“Szayel-sama, Harribel-sama is here and is looking for Ajuga,” a voice said, crackling over the com system.

Ajuga turned her thoughts away from the sad situation in the corner and shared an odd look with Szayel.

“Have someone escort her down,” Szayel ordered.

“Yes sir, right away sir.”

“What would Harribel want with me?” Ajuga asked out loud, and frowned.

She had next to no dealings with the only female Espada, although she did respect her from a distance. It had to take some skill and power to fight at that level, not to mention to remain un-Claimed for so long. Women that powerful were highly sought after and Ajuga aspired to be as strong as Harribel one day.

“I honestly have no idea,” Szayel replied, equally as puzzled.

“Papa, Abisara’s being mean again!” Vindula complained from across the lab. “He won’t let me have a turn with the machine!”

The little girl pouted, crossing her arms over her chest and glowering at her brother.

“That is because you don’t know how to use it properly,” Abisara said firmly.

“I do too!” she snapped.

“No, you do not,” he stated, a bit more crossly than last time.

“Do too!”

“No you do not.”

“Do too!”

“No you do not.”

They continued like that back and forth with “no you do not” degrading to “do not” as they argued and Abisara’s temper flared. Szayel massaged his fingers into his temples in increasing rotations as the sniping continued, much to Ajuga amusement. Before Szayel could step in though, another voice broke through the twins’ clamouring.

“Alright, what’s with the arguing?” Renji demanded sternly as he entered the room with Harribel following cautiously behind him. He strode right up to the two and knelt down to address Vindula.

“Ji-ji, Abisara is being mean to me!” Vindula wailed as she flung herself into the redhead’s arms.

Being used to such behaviour from the young girl, Renji caught her easily and settled her on his hip, then looked down at her older brother.

“I am not!” Abisara denied childishly. “She’s just not listening!”

“No, you’re being mean!” Vindula shouted down at him.

Renji winced.

“Hey, you two, have mercy on my ears,” Renji admonished. “I’m right here, you know.

“Sorry Ji-ji,” she apologized sheepishly.

“Now, what is going on?” he asked again, his voice stern and his brown eyes serious.

“Abisara won’t let me use the machine. He got to use it on me, so it’s only fair I get to use it on him!” she pouted.

“Abisara?” Renji turned his attention to the boy, who was glaring at his twin with his arms crossed.

“She doesn’t know how to use it properly,” he responded. “Last time she messed up the controls and it took Father and me half a day to fix it,” he added with a scowl.

“Vindula?” Renji turned back towards the little girl he held and his eyes told her he expected her to tell the truth.

“I didn’t know how to use it that time,” she admitted. “But I do now. I watched Abisara use it.”

“Watching me do something isn’t the same as _learning_ how to do it. I don’t want to spend half a day fixing it again!”

“Then why don’t you show your sister how to use it,” Renji suggested, walking up to the green-eyed boy and the machine in question.

“I can’t show her while she’s using it on me,” he pointed out smugly.

“Hm, you’re right. I guess you’ll just have to show her how to work with it while using it on _me_ ,” he proposed, setting Vindula down next to her brother. Then he gave the child a grin that dared Abisara to argue with him as he rolled up the sleeve of his kosode.

Abisara sent Renji a horrified look while Vindula smiled and whooped in triumph.

“He is good with children, as well as protective,” Harribel noted as she joined Ajuga and Szayel.

“Indeed,” Szayel agreed as he watched his offspring. “Well worth the price of having Orihime fix him and putting up with his abrasive behaviour.”

“So, the com staff said you wanted to talk to me,” Ajuga turned her attention away from the twins and their surrogate uncle and towards the female Espada standing beside them.

“Yes. Your father requested that I speak to you,” Harribel answered, turning her own attention Ajuga’s way.

“About what?” Ajuga questioned suspiciously.

“About things pertaining to female Hollows,” Harribel replied.

“Ah!” Szayel nodded his head in understanding. “Would it be too presumptuous to request you do that same for Vindula when she is older?” he requested politely. “I do understand such things of course, but it is always better, and less embarrassing, for the girl to hear it from another woman instead of their own father.”

“I can arrange such a talk, when the time comes,” Harribel assured him.

Her eyes flickered to the small winged girl giggling at the controls of the machine while her brother strapped a blood pressure cuff around Renji’s tattooed bicep.

“You have plenty of time before you need to worry about such, though. I assume that there have been no more incidents with the Numeros?”

Szayel looked more than a little relieved about that, and then gave Harribel a slight, respectful bow.

“No, thankfully. I believe the… deterrent Aizen-Kami set up last year was sufficient warning. Thank you. We are done here for today Ajuga-chan, if you want to go and have that talk.”

“Sure. Do you still need help tomorrow with the dissection of S6 number 4?” she inquired.

“If you are interested in attending, you are of course welcome to come,” he agreed.

“Consider me there unless something comes up, like a battle,” she said with an easy grin.

“You know your mother doesn’t like it when you participate is those,” he frowned at her.

“She’s just being over-protective. It doesn’t bother Papa any,” Ajuga grouched and then shrugged.

It looked for a moment like Szayel was going to say more about it, but he stopped and sent a look Harribel’s way instead. Ajuga wasn’t sure why he would glance at Harribel, she was just happy he had dropped the subject. It was bad enough arguing with her mother over the issue. She didn’t want to get into a dispute with Szayel as well.

“I will see you tomorrow then.”

“Tomorrow,” she agreed. “I’m leaving, see you guys later,” she called over to the others.

Various versions of ‘later’ came back her way as she followed Harribel out of Szayel’s Division, past the gates and down the street until they arrived at one of the many parks in the First District. This one was large and it had many secluded spots and a large population of wild game thanks to the sheer amount of acreage. Ajuga knew so because she hunted here on occasion, which made the locals happy. The rabbit population tended to get out of control and into their vegetable gardens if no one took steps to keep the core population in the park in check. Fortunately, fresh rabbit made a very tasty snack and she was all too happy to hunt them.

She was oddly at ease around her fellow Arrancar, perhaps because Szayel seemed to understand what was going on and he was relaxed about it as well, even going so far as to request the same service for his own daughter. The silence was getting uncomfortable though.

“So, female Hollow stuff, huh?” Ajuga prompted as they walked through the thick woods.

She knew there was a small, overgrown, secluded pond ahead and figured that was where Harribel was leading her. It was as good a place as any for a long chat. The ice crystals on the frozen pond glittered in the sunlight and not many people ventured there in the winter.

“Yes. I have other things I wish to speak to you and Hana about later this evening, but for now, the conversation is about things _you_ should know, such as how to cast Claims of your own. We do so much differently than the males of our kind. We lack the appropriate appendage required to deliver shots of reiatsu into another’s body.”

“We don’t have dicks. Yeah, I get that,” Ajuga snorted.

Harribel looked at her with a raised eyebrow and Ajuga got the impression the Espada found her reply funny. On her part, she was a bit embarrassed she’d said something so crass.

“Yes, we lack _that_ ,” she agreed. “However, it is still possible for us to cast Claims of our own. I will inform you on how to do so, as one day you will undoubtedly choose a mate of your own, and this knowledge will be useful to return a potential Mating Claim.”

“Ugh, too young to even think about stuff like that,” Ajuga said and made a disgusted face.

“You won’t always feel that way, much to your father’s horror I am sure.” This time Harribel laughed, the soft sound coming from deep within her chest, then her eyes took on a more serious look. “You should also know how to reject an attempted Claim, though I doubt your father will allow anyone attempting that to live for long.”

“Oh, it’s not Papa you have to watch out for, despite his reputation and being able to tear things to shreds. It’s _Mama_ you got to fear. With Papa, your death is quick… gruesome, but quick. Mama, on the other hand, knows how to make you suffer for hours and hours. Trust me, and if you don’t trust me, ask Szay,” Ajuga explained with a chuckle.

“I believe you. Let us begin with the basics.”

The conversation was a little awkward at first, but Ajuga found that she was quickly starting to like Harribel. She’d never really considered the fact that she didn’t really have any female Hollow role models other than Lilinette, and she really wasn’t a good example. As the afternoon rolled on, she felt herself open up more and become bolder with her questions. It was definitely nice being able to talk to another woman, one who wasn’t her mother or surrogate aunt. One who was an Arrancar, as she was and who understood that she was different from the human and Shinigami females that surrounded her. In addition, Harribel was patient with what seemed to Ajuga like an endless stream of questions and didn’t make her feel like a fool for asking them. Ajuga had never even noticed how much she had been stewing over the issues all teenagers suffered with up until now, and with the compounding factor of being a Hollow to boot.

When the sun dipped towards the horizon, the blonde Espada looked up and stretched, then pointed back the way they’d come.

“It is getting late,” she noted. “…and I have something else that I wish to speak to you and Hana about. Come, Hana and Toshiro should be arriving at my den soon and, hopefully, dinner will be ready.”

“Alright… um, Harribel-san…?”

Harribel turned to look at her, eyes expectant. Ajuga looked down at her feet and clasped her hands behind her back.

“Thanks…for doing this for me. I really appreciate it. If I think of anything else, can I talk to you about it later?” Ajuga asked hesitantly.

“Of course,” the Third said, ushering the younger Arrancar-hybrid back towards the main road.

Ajuga got the impression that Harribel was smiling at her behind the mask fragments that covered half her face. It was definitely nice to have someone to talk to about these sorts of things without worrying about judgment.


	9. Offer

Orihime hummed happily as she walked home for the evening, a crate of groceries tucked under one arm and a basket held in the other. Soul Society lacked plastic bags for carrying groceries and as such, reusable crates and baskets were the order of things. She greatly missed some of the convenience things about the Living World, but at the same time, she had to admit that she enjoyed the open markets. Between fresh produce and the food stands, even in the dead of winter, it almost felt like every trip to the market was a mini-holiday or a street festival.

“I’m home,” she announced as she stepped through the front door and kicked her sandals off.

There was no verbal answer, but a brush of reiatsu tingled pleasantly against her skin, causing her to giggle. She walked into the living room on her way to the kitchen, tossing a smile at her Mate, who appeared to be sleeping on the couch, even though she knew he wasn’t.

She set the groceries down and began to put things away, still humming and swaying her hips in tune to the tune. She only stopped when a pair of hands came down upon them shortly before a body pressed itself against her back.

“Why are you attempting to torment me?” Ulquiorra asked.

“I would say it isn’t an attempt…” she responded and rubbed her rear more firmly against the flesh nestled between her cheeks. “I’d say you’re already there.”

He let out a soft groan before suddenly stepping away from her. She pouted unhappily and was about to get upset when she heard the front door open and close before Diaemus announced he was home. Her good mood returned almost immediately and she focused her attention on their son. However, she did give her mate a sultry look that promised they’d pick up where they’d left off later in the evening.

“Diaemus! Welcome home!” she greeted her son happily, pulling him into her embrace despite his stiff posture. “How did the tests go?” she asked.

“Well,” he answered, trying to pull away from her hug.

Orihime sighed and let him go, looking down at him with teary eyes. Diaemus was so much like his father sometimes that it bothered her. It wasn’t that she didn’t love Ulquiorra, but she wished they would be more expressive. She had worked for years to humanize both her son and her mate, to teach them how to think with their hearts and not just rely on cold logic. It was slow going, but she had made noticeable progress, especially with Ulquiorra. He was considerably different from how he’d been fifteen years ago, when he just took what he wanted, claiming it was his right, with no consideration to her feelings on the matter.

“Answer you mother appropriately,” Ulquiorra ordered their son, a small amount of disapproval in his tone.

Diaemus sighed and sent his father look of suffering before turning his attention back to her.

“My height has seen an increase of one point three centimetres…”

Orihime listened attentively as Diaemus informed her how his appointment had gone. She’d been very apprehensive of letting Szayel anywhere near her or her child at first, but he’d slowly earned her trust over the years. It helped that Karin trusted him and knowing that the scientist was Claimed by Grimmjow, who had ordered him to obey Karin in all ways, certainly helped.

“…that is all there is to report. May I proceed with my training now, Mother?” Diaemus asked, and then added “Please?”

“Of course,” she replied and beamed at him. “Try not to get too dirty though, supper will be ready in an hour,” she paused and sent a look over towards her mate. “Well, better make that two hours. I forgot there is something I need to take care of first. Can you wait that long?” she asked her son.

The boy, noticing the looks his parents were exchanging, decided that now would be a good time to make his escape, the quicker the better.

“Yes.”

Without another word, Diaemus fled the house, no doubt heading towards one of the many training fields.

“Now then,” Orihime turned her attention back to Ulquiorra. “I believe we were having a discussion about torment?” she asked innocently.

Letting the straps of her dress fall down, which resulted in the whole thing making a slow trip to the floor as it flowed down her body, she took a step towards him wearing nothing but a pair of underwear.

Ulquiorra could move fast when he wanted to, and this was apparently one of those times. One second he was several feet away from her, the next she was on her back in their bedroom with his mouth attacking hers. It took her a moment to get over the sudden vertigo but Ulquiorra never gave her a chance to take control over the situation. That was fine by her, he was a very attentive lover after all and knew just how to make her whimper and squirm in pleasure beneath him. In fact, he proceeded to do just that.  
  


Hana followed Toshiro home, her mind franticly whirling about as she tried to figure out what Harribel could possibly want with her. Whatever it was, Harribel apparently had Nanao’s permission to present it, and that helped ease Hana’s frazzled nerves, more so knowing that Ajuga would be a part of it.

The house Toshiro led her two was two stories and a decent size, with about an acre of yard. It was nowhere near as big as the Estate they lived on, but it was still an impressive place. Most likely, it had belonged to a rich merchant before Harribel had taken it over after the war.

The smell of dinner and the buzz of conversation greeted them as they entered the house and removed their waraji at the door. She watched as he carefully folded the green silk scarf that usually hung around his neck and placed it reverently on a low shelf that seemed reserved just for that garment. Toshiro led her to the dining room where Harribel’s fraccion were busy setting the table for the evening meal. Harribel sat at the head of the table with Ajuga in the seat to her right.

“Welcome home, Toshiro,” Harribel greeted him, looking up at the young man through golden lashes.

“Harribel,” he answered, returning Harribel’s greeting warmly.

She watched, fascinated despite herself, as her Taichou exchanged his usual narrow-lipped scowl for a small smile. Hana tried very hard not to stare, lest her eyes deceive her. Hitsugaya-Taichou almost never smiled at the office, especially of late with the newest Swarm attacks.

Hana got the impression that this was a routine greeting. She felt a little more uncomfortable, uncertain as to what she supposed to do with herself. Ajuga, on the other hand, seemed completely at ease, even happy.

“Hana, welcome. Please, have a seat,” Harribel indicated the chair on her left. “Dinner is almost ready.”

“How was work today?” Ajuga asked her.

“Good,” she answered, feeling a little less uneasy now that she had something relevant and familiar to talk about. “How did the tests with Szay go?”

Ajuga shrugged and leaned back in her chair.

“Same old, same old... Diaemus grew a bit more, and the twins were bickering again until Ji-ji intervened,” she explained. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

Hana also laughed as she sat down in the indicated seat.

“Ji-ji?” Toshiro asked, confused as he took the seat at the other end of the table. “Do you mean Abarai-san?”

“It’s what the twins call him,” Hana chuckled, her apprehension fading. “Szay set Renji-san up to be the twins’ caretaker. I swear Vindula has had him wrapped around her little pinkie since the day she hatched.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Ajuga agreed, crooking her little finger and rotating it. “Abisara is as refined as Szay likes to pretend he is, but Vindula, she’s a handful, always getting into trouble and trying to follow us around.”

“She’s a handful? Clearly you need to look in a mirror, Ajuga-chan” Hana shot back.

“Seems like that’s a case of the pot calling the kettle ‘black,’” Ajuga replied with a raised eyebrow.

Harribel’s fraccion paused, sensing a proverbial had just been tossed into the middle of the table.

“I don’t know what you are referring to. I, unlike you, am the embodiment of discipline.”

Hana’s self-assessment earned her a snort from her childhood friend.

“Right, and whose idea was it again to ambush Starrk-ji in the summer with three pails of ice water because he looked hot?”

“Lilynette’s,” Hana answered without a moment’s hesitation. “Besides, it’s sort of become a bit of a tradition,” she shrugged.

“It’s a tradition to attack the Primera with buckets of ice water?” Mila Rose asked, openly shocked.

“Don’t look at me, it was a tradition before _I_ was born,” Ajuga gestured towards Hana.

“Hey, Lily-chan started it. I was too young and innocent to know better,” Hana proclaimed. “Let’s talk about you and Starrk-ji and the makeup kit…”

The playful banter helped calm her down during dinner. The three fraccion seemed interested in what it was like living with someone as powerful as Starrk and the conversation continued as the meal progressed. Harribel and Toshiro simply ate in silence, watching the girls and Harribel’s fraccion with amused expressions. At least Hana was sure Harribel was amused, it was hard to tell as the only clue to her emotions were through her green eyes and the occasional low-pitched laugh she would let out during one of their more amusing stories. All in all, dinner went well, and tasted pretty damn good actually. It was kind of nice having other women to talk to other than her mother and Karin. They may have been Arrancar, but that didn’t faze her in the least having grown up around the race. In the end, women tended to be women.

It was well after dessert when Harribel led them to a study and asked that they close the door behind them. Toshiro had excused himself and left for his own chamber. Apprehension replaced the peaceful feeling that had had come over her earlier. Even Ajuga, who was much more at ease around Harribel, suddenly seemed slightly apprehensive as well.

“Please, be seated,” Harribel said, and motioned with one elegant hand towards the couch.

Both girls sat down while Harribel took the recliner across from them. Hana often wondered about the large collection of styles Soul Society possessed. Most of it was feudal, but there was a large collection of modern things as well, such as the refrigerators and soul phones to almost the entirety of Szayel’s Division.

“I want to make it clear that this idea comes from your parents, but whether you accept or not is entirely up to you. You will receive no pressure from me, and I will only agree to this if you are willing. I would also like to get to know you better, as this is not a decision entered into lightly. It would please me if you would accompany Toshiro home on occasion so that we may do so before we make things final. Is everything clear so far?” Harribel asked.

“It would help if we knew what it is we are agreeing to,” Hana pointed out, pleased that her voice was clear despite the sudden nervousness and fear that was overcoming her.

She knew that their parents were starting to fear for them. It was a secret fear of her own as well, one that had bothered her for the last several months. In fact, she’d gone so far as to ask Szayel for a tracking bracelet of her own in case she caught the eye of an Arrancar undeterred by the fact she lived on the same Estate as both halves of the Primera. The Terceira’s next words did nothing to alleviate her concerns.

“Your parents fear you’ll become a bit too attractive, especially you Ajuga, to those who have yet to make a Claim, or who may be bored with the one they have and dismiss him or her for a better prospect,” Harribel answered bluntly.

Hana was not feeling any better. She knew what Claiming entailed, thanks to Lilynette and she found it hard to believe that her mother would ask anyone to do this to her. Her own mother wasn’t even physically Claimed, yet she was safe.

 _There has to be a better way than this! Hell, Harribel is incredibly powerful. Would I even be able to handle it,_ she wondered fearfully.

“Most couldn’t even touch me,” Ajuga snorted. “However, there are a few who could and they haven’t exhausted their quota yet,” she admitted reluctantly.

“Indeed…” Harribel agreed with a nod. “This is why your parents requested that I take you under my wing. If, of course, you’re willing. They feel this is the best option, since it will be an arrangement of command outside your family structure. No one wants to answer to their parents forever, after all.”

Despite nearly hyperventilating, Hana still got the impression that Harribel was smiling. It was something about her eyes and the ease in her body language. In fact, Harribel was completely relaxed with the conversation.

“It makes sense,” Ajuga agreed easily. “But I am not sure I really like the idea. No offence Harribel, but, even though I know you would probably be fair, I sort of like my freedom. I understand why my parents are concerned, and I’m surprised that Papa even swallowed his pride enough to ask, but I just don’t like structural command. I would really need to think about it. I am not saying ‘yes,’ but I am not saying ‘no’ just yet either. Hana?” Ajuga looked at her.

Hana’s mind was still whirling about in chaos, flipping between how she really didn’t want her first time to be with a stranger and wondering how and if an Arrancar woman could set up that sort of protection. Mixed in was a large amount of betrayal that her mother would even _consider_ this option for her safety. She hardly even knew Harribel, had never even exchanged words with her until this day.

“Um, Hana, are you alright?” Ajuga asked concerned.

“How can you be so calm about this?” Hana asked.

“It’s not that big of a deal.” Ajuga looked at her, bewildered as to why her childhood friend seemed on the verge of crying.

“This is insane,” Hana shook her head. “How could our parents even conceive of such an idea, especially without even asking us?”

“Hana, why are you so worked up over this?” Ajuga asked, concerned now. “Considering that you’re the logical one, I expected that you would have been all over the offer!”

“I understand the concern and how this would eliminate the threat, but the thought of sharing a bed with someone I don’t even know, that my mother agreed…” she couldn’t finish.

Ajuga stared at her blankly for a moment, before bursting into laugher. In fact, she was laughing so hard that she clutched her sides and nearly rolled off of her portion of the couch. Harribel’s sea-green eyes seemed taken aback for a moment, before they closed and both girls heard a deep-chested laugh erupt from the Espada. Two of her fingertips gently rubbed her forehead and she actually looked a bit chagrined.

“Oh… Hana,” Ajuga gasped. “You…. Oh Kami…”

“Forgive me, Hana. I should have made myself clearer. I am offering to accept you as one of my fraccion, not Claim you,” Harribel clarified, sounding a bit sheepish. “It is forbidden to Claim another’s fraccion and as such, you would be safe from that particular danger. It is true that an Espada can Claim their own fraccion, but I already have a partner I am _very_ satisfied with.”

“Oh.”

Hana listened and found her cheeks flooding with color. Now that she had calmed down a little, she felt ridiculous. It should have been obvious that something else was going on. After all, Aizen had limited the Espada to two pets and Harribel already had Toshiro. It would have been against Aizen’s law to add the two girls and she was positive that Harribel liked Toshiro, if the occasionally heated looks the two exchanged throughout dinner were any indication of their feelings. Releasing him from her service would result in his execution unless another picked him up. She was positive that Harribel wouldn’t do that to him.

“We would be your fraccion?” Hana asked, to make sure she’d heard the offer correctly.

“Yes. Do you understand what a fraccion is?”

“They are those that serve a specific Espada. Ajuga I can understand, but I am not an Arrancar. Could I even be one?” she wondered, her curiosity winning out. “Or even have the rank acknowledged?”

“Why do you think no one has bothered your mother, despite the fact that she is still ‘physically’ unClaimed by Starrk?” Harribel pointed out.

Hana looked down at her hands and gave that some thought. She’d simply assumed that no one wanted to mess with Starrk or Lilynette, but that obviously wasn’t the whole story. Her mother was also very good at defending herself from unwanted attention, apparently thanks to years of fending off the father Hana never got the chance to meet. Her mother was also very proficient with Kido so the brief time she’d been denied her Zanpakuto hadn’t hindered her combat skills too badly.

“I never really considered it that way,” she admitted.

In fact, she tried not to think about it. It was just plain strange thinking about Starrk-ji and ‘take-ji having sex together. The less time she spent on that thought, the better.

“So, what would I have to do as your fraccion?” Hana asked, once her pulse had returned to normal.

Harribel seemed to think this was a reasonable question. She made an expansive gesture with one of her hands.

“I do not expect overly much from my fraccion other than loyalty and friendship. While I will have the right to issue you commands, and I will expect you to obey those commands, I will not order you to do something without a very good reason, nor would I order you to harm someone for whom you care. As I expect loyalty from my fraccion, in return you will have my loyalty. I defend that which belongs to me. It is difficult being a woman amongst so many chauvinistic fools.”

Hana watched as Ajuga nodded at that.

“Would I have to move here?” she asked.

“No,” Harribel assured her. “I do not expect for you to change your life at all, considering your duties. However, it would be nice if you did come by and visit on occasion. I love my girls, but their conversations can get tedious at times and Toshiro tells me that you are a rather charming, intelligent and insightful young woman.”

“Oh, really?” she asked, embarrassed now. “I didn’t know he talked about me.”

“We often talk about his work. As I stated before, you do not need to decide at present. I’m leaving the option open for now. I would like you to consider it carefully though.”

“Alright, I will think about it,” Hana assured her. “How soon would you like a response?”

It was going to a difficult decision to make and she definitely didn’t want to rush into something like this, not without getting more facts and information. The first person she planned on speaking to when she got back to the Estate was Starrk.

“As long as you need, be it three days or three years,” Harribel answered, taking Hana by surprise. “I believe we are finished here for now, and no doubt your mothers are fretting over this conversation even as we speak.”

All three of the women in the room laughed at that and Hana found she liked the deep rumble Harribel gave. It was dark out by the time the two girls walked home, discussing the idea between them.

The offer was sound, but Hana wanted to get to know the Espada better. Ajuga was only slightly interested. Much like her father, Ajuga had issues with authority and didn’t like having to answer to others. It was starting to become a bit of an issue and Hana had walked in on a few heated arguments between mother and daughter. She understood Karin’s concern of course. If the Swarm ever learned of Ajuga’s heritage she would quickly become a target, but Hana couldn’t tell Ajuga that. Karin was keeping it a secret and Hana understood why. Still, it put her in a bit of a tough spot, as she had to sit on an increasingly rickety fence, stuck between supporting her friend and agreeing with her mother. She wasn’t looking forward to the day that fence gave way and she had to make a hard choice. With any luck, that day would never come.

“Well, how did it go?” Nanao asked as the two girls entered the main living room.

“It went well,” Ajuga answered with a shrug. “I am going to pry Papa off of Mother and embarrass the hell out of him. See you in the morning.”

Ajuga announced this with just a little too much wicked glee and waved at the two of them as she left for her family’s suite.

“Good night Ajuga,” Hana called back.

What Ajuga just described had no business being in her head and she dismissed the images her friend had planted there, making a face as she did so. It was just as well. She had her own worried parent to deal with right now.

“Well?” Nanao pressed, probably wanting to know what her daughter thought of the potential arrangement.

“It seems like a good, safe idea, and I understand why you asked her instead of Starrk-ji or Grimmjow. Right now, we just want to get to know each other a bit better. What can you tell me about her?” Hana asked.

“Not much I am afraid, but Toshiro seems to trust her. I would speak to Starrk if you want to know more. I think he is playing a game of Go with Jushiro right now,” Nanao answered.

“I think I will do that.”

“Did Ajuga seem like she was going to agree?”

“No, she is too free-spirited,” Hana said regretfully, and shook her head. “You know, Harribel told me that you are technically Starrk-ji’s fraccion.”

Her mother seemed a little surprised about that, which struck Hana as strange. Her mother was usually the one to consider things from all angles before making any decisions.

“I never thought of it that way,” Nanao mused as she stood up to follow Hana to Jushiro’s room. Hana hoped that Starrk would be in a talkative mood and answer her questions without being either cryptic or lazy about it.


	10. Suffering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A sad chapter, with more Yammy jackassery at the end.

There it was. Her child displayed in a 3D image on the monitor. She could even see its little heart beating away and could watch as the unborn baby sucked on his or her hand. They didn’t know the gender yet, and didn’t want to know. If she didn’t know the gender she couldn’t think up names, never mind that a Hollow’s child gained their name at birth. If the child didn’t have a name, she couldn’t get attached to him or her, and that was something she was afraid to do, especially with the child’s fate so unknown.

At least, Soi Fon thought miserably, that’s what she kept telling herself once Barragan revealed both his anger at her state and what he intended to do about it.

“The child seems to be doing well,” Nemu reported. “He or she is healthy and growing at a rate similar to the one we recorded for Ajuga Jaegerjaquez.”

Soi Fon didn’t answer, but she had no way of doing so. Barragan had burned her throat out with his powers to silence her when her tongue had gotten too sharp and Ggio hadn’t been around to order her silent. She’d been a bit delirious afterwards, but she knew that Barragan punished Ggio for it as well. Yumichika had informed her of it while he‘d tended to her.

“Have you been able to keep up a healthy diet?” Nemu asked gently.

“Yes,” Ggio answered for her, then hesitated.

Nemu looked at him and he looked at his boots.

“I’m making sure she gets the supplements and bring her what meals I can. The servants have orders to give her nothing more than water and rice,” he confessed.

Soi Fon felt tears form at the corner of her eyes and she angrily stuffed them back by sheer force of will. What Ggio wasn’t telling them was that he’d been bringing her at least part of his meals and any stolen scraps he could manage to sneak from the kitchens.

“Barragan is still being an anal old fool, I take it?” Szayel asked unhappily, as he joined them, apparently done with his own work.

A glance over showed her that only Abarai Renji and the twins remained, and they were firmly locked in their own little world, with the redhead arbitrating the latest round of ‘Did not, did so.’ Soi Fon nodded in answer, her eyes going back to the image of her baby. She picked up the chalkboard Nemu had provided for her to communicate with, a rather ingenious idea actually and far more convenient than pen and paper.

‘He desires the pregnancy terminated, despite Aizen-Kami’s will’ she wrote.

“Barragan’s being a short-sighted, stubborn old goat,” Szayel agreed. “Odd though, considering how much of an interest he showed towards Ajuga,” he mused.

“Ajuga is the daughter of an Espada,” Nemu reminded her mate.

“True. Perhaps that isn’t the issue though…” Szayel mused, his gaze sliding from her to Ggio. “Perhaps he is more concerned with shifting loyalties.”

She felt Ggio stiffen beside her. She knew his loyalty to Barragan had dwindled to next to nothing over the years. The once fanatical devotion he’d had for his Espada had been destroyed over years of rape and pain as Barragan turned his lusts to his only surviving fraccion, and poor Yumichika. Unlike Yumichika, who had her, Ggio had had no one to help support him through the pain of betrayal and abuse… at least, not at first. Slowly, both she and Yumichika had brought him into their little circle as his hero-worship twisted and cratered into fear and hopelessness.

She’d never thought that the few, small, kind things she’d done for him over the years when she took pity on him after Barragan had been particularly cruel would turn into adoration and desire. She would never forget the first time he apologized to her for having to refresh her Claim, nor would she forget the time she had caught him and Yumichika plotting together as to the best method to win her affection. That one had definitely answered some of the questions she’d had about the change in his behaviour. At the time, his efforts made little sense to her. He could have simply forced her to submit to him via his Claim on her person, rather than going to the trouble of actually courting her. She’d even asked him about it, in her usual point-blank manner.

His answer had surprised and saddened her a little.

_“_ _The Claim is not mine, but Barragan-sama_ _’_ _s. It is something that, even though I cast it, belongs to him. This is something I want that doesn_ _’_ _t belong to him._ _”_

It was a sweet response that touched her with its honesty. Ggio seemed so fervent about pleasing her. He’d told her this when she’d finally relented and let him bring her out on a ‘date.’ Barragan’s orders restricted her wardrobe, but that hadn’t kept him from taking her out of the Estate, into the sunshine and fresh air, to one of the many garden ponds in the 1st District with a picnic basket that practically screamed ‘Yumichika packed this.’

She hated to admit it, but she had grown rather fond of her effeminate fellow slave. Yumichika had done much for her over the years and the two had become close, so close that he had finally revealed to her why and how he was surviving this nightmare relatively unscathed.

_“_ _Long before I met Ikakku, when I was much younger and living alone, my swordsmanship was hardly what it is today. I was taught from a young age how to use a different weapon to keep me safe and earn my daily bread: seduction. The more skilled one is at that art, the better one eats. The better one eats, the prettier one can afford to look. The more beautiful one is, the more one is able to pick and choose their cliental, and more importantly, pick the ones who are less likely to be rough in their intimacy._ _”_

It had apparently taken him a long time to work his way up that confession, but that didn’t mean that being on the top of the prostitute pile, for that was truly what he had been, protected him from those that would take what they wanted, especially in the 79th District. He’d learned it was best to go along, to stay unbeaten and uninjured, because being beaten meant it was harder to get work, and that meant that he’d have to settle for less savoury customers, all of which resulted in a downward spiral.

She’s returned his trust with tales of her own past, although now they seemed so petty compared to what he’d gone through. Still, she’d never shared with anyone else how much Yoruichi leaving her behind had hurt, other than to the woman herself. Yumichika had listened and not judged, and that had helped her lift a lot of that weight off of her shoulders.

“What will you do if Barragan does order you to destroy the child?” Nemu asked, bringing Soi Fon’s thoughts out of historical hell and into the present one.

‘I don’t know,’ she wrote out, fighting back tears and cursing the hormones that her pregnancy seemed determined to unleash on her body and moods.

She tried not to think about it. She was not sure she would be able to handle watching Barragan slaughter her infant after it was born. She was already suffering nightmares and having a hard time sleeping as she fretted over her unborn child’s fate. She was almost to the emotional point of begging Aizen of all people to do something about it.

“We could request it as an experiment,” Nemu offered. “You do have a frightful reputation.”

“You mean I did. Unfortunately, Karin-sama put an end to that when she demanded that we obey the Code of Ethics from that accursed 4th Division to the letter,” he reminded her and scowled. “And Aizen destroyed what little reputation I had left when he had me announce my servitude to her in front of the entire Arrancar population.”

“Right now, I would sooner be in your shoes,” Ggio grumbled, hands rubbing Soi Fon’s shoulders, trying to get her to relax a little.

“Touché. You are as healthy as can be expected, Soi Fon. Just keep taking those pills we gave you. They will help keep the nutrients in your body at a steady level even if Barragan attempts to starve the child out of you. I will not have that doddering old fool interfere with any of my potential specimens.”

She nodded her head to indicate she understood.

“Now for your turn,” Szayel turned to face Ggio.

“I am fine,” he protested.

“I believe you need to look up the definition of that term, because I don’t think it means what you think it means. Here I had always figured you were one of the more intelligent of Barragan’s fraccion. You have been standing stiffly this entire time and I know, from rather painful personal experience, that the only reason you would be doing so would be if you’d sustained an injury to your back, among other ailments. Now kindly take your mate’s place on this table so Nemu can see to and tend to those wounds. And that’s an order.”

“Technically, you can’t order me,” Ggio grumbled, but he did help Soi Fon off the examination table, wincing heavily as he sat down.

Szayel was right, Ggio’s entire back was a shredded mess, and not all of the damage was fresh. It was Barragan’s solution to prevent them from having a relationship, to make sure that Ggio was too exhausted and in too much pain to even think about cuddling, let alone sex. Soi Fon suspected that Barragan was deliberately trying to make it so that the Claim would fall off, which would result in her execution. She had a feeling that the 2nd Espada no longer found her amusing and he could force anyone on the Estate he had taken for his own to replace her.

She wondered what would happen to her if the Claim fell off and how long she would have to be re-Claimed by another before Aizen put her to death. Who knew, maybe Aizen might even dismiss the whole thing, but she doubted it. Unlike Ukitake, Toshiro or Unohana, she didn’t have a job or a Division holding her here. As much as it would be unpleasant for her to leave Yumichika behind, she would bolt for the Living Realm as quickly as she could to find her old mentor and join the Escapees. Then she would have a long talk with them about what was taking them so damn long to rescue everyone.

Ggio was in far worse shape than she thought, as she watched him remove his uniform. His skin was a mottled mix of black, yellow and blue from far too many bruises and the lashes he’d been given decorated not only his back, but his chest and thighs as well. Szayel frowned and started moving the gurney on which Ggio lay to various pieces of equipment. The worse test had to be the X-rays. Soi Fon had never realized how many of his bones had been bruised. Six of his ribs even had half-healed hairline fractures.

 _He just refreshed the Claim last week, and those look to be at least several weeks old. He had to have been in a large amount of pain when he recast it,_ she realized, shocked and feeling a little guilty.

“You need to rest,” Szayel scowled.

“I wish I could do so, but we both know these injuries are minor, and no excuse not to serve Barragan-sama,” Ggio pointed out.

“True enough,” Szayel agreed. “Still… Abisara, come over here.” Szayel called.

“Yes, Otou-san?” Abisara asked, leaving Renji and Vindula to their game as he joined them. The young boy’s large green eyes looked up as his father, his expression neutral.

“It would be a terrible, _terrible_ thing if Ggio here were to contract a virus, one that would leave him bedridden in the 4th Division for several days. You know… like the engineered influenza virus that you and I created the other day in Laboratory 4 as part of your lesson plan. You remember, don’t you, the one with the artificially short, 10-second incubation time, on the second shelf in the refrigerator?”

“That would be unfortunate,” Abisara agreed before walking off as if the conversation had never occurred.

Soi Fon sent Nemu a confused look.

“We are ordered to follow the Code of Ethics to the letter,” Nemu explained smoothly. “Soi Fon, if you’ll come over here for a few minutes, I have two blood draws I’d like to do, to make sure your kidneys, liver and spleen are functioning properly, and to make sure your glucose levels remain stable.”

 _Clever_ , Soi Fon silently admitted.

She let Nemu separate her from Ggio, knowing a precautionary quarantine when she saw one enacted. Nemu also pulled out a syringe and smiled sweetly at Soi Fon as she prepared the woman’s upper arm for an injection. The fact that Nemu knew how to smile unnerved the former Taichou more than the fact she held a needle in her hand.

“It’s merely a standard, wide-spectrum influenza vaccine. All pregnant women should have one.”

After rubbing some healing cream on Ggio’s wounds, bandaging them, and setting the next date for Soi Fon’s prenatal appointment, Szayel announced that they were free to return home. Abisara, unfortunately, wasn’t watching where he was going as he walked through the examination room, wandering suspiciously close to where Ggio was struggling to pull his clothing back on. The pink-haired boy seemed to stumble as he neared the fang-masked Arrancar and before anyone knew it, he’d splashed Ggio’s face with the contents of the innocent-looking test tube in his gloved hands as he tripped.

Szayel offered Ggio his sincerest apologies and warned them that if the Arrancar started feeling woozy, he should seek out Unohana-Taichou, just to be on the safe side.

 _Very clever,_ she couldn’t help but think as they left, Ggio still sputtering a little.

  
  


Byakuya hated the new direction the design of his clothing had taken. He also hated the clips that went with it. His arms, legs, and back were killing him as the gear forced him to hold this rather uncomfortable position. He tried to meditate through it, and for a while that had worked, but now the pain had gone from mildly annoying and uncomfortable, to excruciating.

Yammy had ordered the staff to set him up this way for his arrival, and three hours later, the brute had yet to show up. Worse, Yammy had taken Senbonzakura with him so that he didn’t even have that little bit of mental support. It was just him, alone, on display in Yammy’s room waiting for another round of abuse. He was beyond tired of it. One would think that if the elders could teach the Espada table manners and basic hygiene, they could wean him of his aggressive sexual tendencies as well. Honestly, Byakuya sometimes wondered if _some_ of the Elders weren’t enjoying watching him suffer for all of the stubborn, pig-headedness he had made them endure through over the years. His decisions regarding his choice of wife, of Hisana and Rukia came to mind. He’d overheard several of the Elders going on about his need to learn some humility.

Well, he had that in spades now. Yammy had seen to it. This shameful pose was just the latest in a recent line of Yammy’s newest interest: bondage. Yammy ordered his ankles latched to his belt and his wrists latched to his ankles. On his side, this might have been tolerable, but a kneeling position hurt. Even that might have been passable but the leash attached to the collar on his neck tethered to the belt and it pulled him back, so he knelt with his legs spread apart. Thus, he was on full display while forced to lean backwards. With his weight precariously balanced, he might have fallen over by now if not for the fact that Yammy kept him in that position with a firm grip on his Claim.

As if that wasn’t making him suffer enough, Yammy’s orders included a blindfold and some unknown person put clips on his nipples before sucking him up to a full-fledged erection and sliding on a bloody cock ring. It seemed designed like some sort of choke collar, attached to the clips on his nipples so every time he took a breath the whole assembly pulled, which painfully tightened the ring surrounding his shaft while pulling on his nipples. Adding one final insult to injury, someone had shoved a ball gag in his mouth and he’d heard the distinct sound of a camera repeatedly clicking away. The gag made it difficult to swallow and he just knew some of his saliva was now running down the side of his face and neck.

He was about ready to die now, Kuchiki pride and clan duty be damned. He was freezing, he was in agony, and he was beyond humiliated. Byakuya was parched as well, as the position had him sweating twenty minutes in and so far, nothing had been given to him to replace that lost water. He was cold and his body had started to shiver, which definitely didn’t help with the rig connecting the cock ring to his nipples. He would be surprised if there wasn’t bruising on his shaft and he suspected that going to the bathroom would be painful for a while.

He heard the door open and was sick with himself for hoping it was Yammy and that the bastard might release him from this horrid position. The steps were too soft to be Yammy though and the hands that brushed over him as they tested the straps were far too small. Without a word, the intruder left, leaving him alone in his misery once more. He almost sobbed, but he managed to hold it back, just barely. He focused on anger instead. Anger was safe; despair could destroy what little he and Senbonzakura had managed to fix of his soul. Another half an hour crept by before the door slid open again, and this time he knew it was Yammy as a wave of oppressive reiatsu flowed into the room. The steps were also heavier, rocking the floorboards.

“Ah Chicchai-Hime, you are absolutely yummy-looking,” Yammy laughed nastily. “Have you been waiting for me long?”

 _You know damn well how long I have been trussed like this,_ he mentally snarled, furious that he’d been left like this.

He felt Yammy walk around him several times before a large palm wrapped around the group of restraints behind his back and, without ceremony, used them to pick Byakuya up. His shoulders and hips screamed in agony as Yammy’s actions forced them to take his full weight and, despite himself, he screamed, the sound muffled by the gag in his mouth. Yammy laughed in amusement before dropping him to land on his chest on the futon. The clips were finally undone and his arms and legs sprang apart as if they were spring loaded. Blood quickly returned to those joints, causing them to tingle painfully.

He was hyperventilating and tears pooled at the corner of his eyes. Regardless to how hard he fought to contain them, he simply couldn’t manage it. His entire body was awash in pain and had been for four hours. He tried to latch onto Senbonzakura, to get that emotional support, but there was no answer. Yammy hadn’t brought the Zanpakuto back with him.

“Know that it is your stupid sword’s fault that you are suffering now, for failing to speak to me when I demanded it,” Yammy snorted just before something whipped painfully onto his rear, causing him to arch his back and tighten the ring around his forced erection.

What the hell was the idiot saying? Of course, Senbonzakura wouldn’t speak to him. Even someone as stupid as Yammy must know that a Zanpakuto could only communicate with his or her owner.

The switch came down upon his rear again and he tried to keep his body from straining, or at least not so much. He brought his hands down to undo the clips attached to his nipples, but Yammy put a stop to that by grabbing his wrist and reattaching them, wrist to elbow strap, behind his back. The switching continued and he did his best to remain immobile and bring his breathing under control. When the switch broke, Yammy grabbed another and continued beating him, this time on the backs of his thighs and down his calves until the brute began to assault the soles of his feet. He could feel skin break and blood trickled over his skin. Yammy’s rage, unfortunately, was not yet played out.

So focused was he on the physical torture he experienced, Byakuya was unable to figure out just why Yammy was so pissed at Senbonzakura. Suddenly Yammy’s weight was on top of him and he felt his insides tear as Yammy forced his way in without any form of preparation. The pain finally became too much and he felt his consciousness start to blissfully slip away. Yammy jerked him back by a very painful pull on the Claim, to make sure he would not escape this.

He really did try to hold back his screams, but he was simply in too much agony. The way Yammy was pulling on his hair and making his back arch he almost swore that the cock ring wrapped around him was going to end up severing his manhood, or at least leave some lasting damage.

Yammy didn’t rape him for very long, but the gush of cum that flowed out of his bleeding and abused anus wasn’t the end of Yammy’s torture for him. The bastard finally removed his gag, permitting him to take gasping lungful of air and swallow properly. His jaw hurt terribly from being kept open for so long. Yammy also removed the blindfold, but it hardly mattered, as his eyes were screwed shut. A meaty fist dragged him to his feet and Yammy pushed him forward. His legs were unable to support his weight after having been locked in that kneeling position for so long and he collapsed to the floor in a rather undignified manner, only to be dragged upward again by his restrained arms and hauled out of the room as if he weighed nothing.

His vision was blurred and he was unable to make out where Yammy was taking him until the thug tossed him to the floor once more. Now he could hear Senbonzakura’s frantic voice, although it was distant and he was too delirious to make out what his Zanpakuto attempted to say to him. Yammy spoke something, his guttural voice harsh, but Byakuya couldn’t make out the words, as all he could hear was the rushing of his own blood in his ears.

Dimly, he understood that he was in a room full of people. He could feel the terrified vibrations of their reiatsu and even the odd whimper managed to make it through the roaring in his head. His eyes were blurry with anguished tears and he blinked them furiously to try and see what was going on.

The entire household had assembled, from the elders to the servants. For a change, it looked like the Elders were sweating beneath their expensive kimonos. Yammy was still snarling and hollering, but Byakuya didn’t understand, as everything sounded like gibberish to him right now. While the brute went on his tirade, Byakuya’s hearing slowly started to recover, until a large, heavy foot connected with his side and sent him rolling onto his back so he was fully exposed to the entire room. Worse, the new position forced him to put weight on the lashes covering his entire backside and he ground his teeth together to prevent anything more than the odd whimper of pain from escaping his throat.

“ _Master_!!!”

Senbonzakura sounded frantic, but at least the sounds in the room had begun to take on meaning and grow clearer. Suddenly, he wished they hadn’t. Someone, an elderly woman from the pitch of her voice, unexpectedly screamed in terror and pain before one of the more powerful forces of reiatsu in the room winked out of existence.

He forced himself to fight past the pain, taking in the horrified expressions of the staff, the slight looks of shock from the elders, a true testament to their distress as it took a true crisis to make them drop their masks. The lower half of a bloody corpse hung in Yammy’s hand, blood dribbling down the monster’s face and from the side of his mouth as he chewed. It had been a long time since the monster had eaten anyone. Judging by the expensive material and the loss of one of the more powerful sparks, the victim had been one of his great aunts. He felt sick to his stomach, a nausea that only grew when Yammy tore more material out of his way and took another large bite of flesh. Pure horror was the only thing holding everyone in place, that and the oppressive amount of reiatsu the brute was throwing out.

“ _Master_!!” Senbonzakura’s voice came in a little clearer and he fumbled clumsily along their mutual link, needing that grounding more than he ever had in the past.

 _“_ _What is going on?_ _”_ he asked. His voice shaky despite his best efforts to try to keep it calm.

 _“_ _He wants to talk to me again_ _”_ Senbonzakura replied.

Byakuya’s body froze. All of this, all of this pain and torture was simply because Yammy wanted to talk to Senbonzakura and was furious the Zanpakuto hadn’t answered him? He had figured Yammy had taken his Zanpakuto away from him to punish him for some imagined slight, not because the Espada wanted a conversation.

“Still staying silent, eh?” Yammy sneered, blood and bits of flesh spraying from his mouth, splattering red dots across the floor and those unfortunate enough to be crouching and trembling in the direction he faced. “I suggest you get your stupid sword talking…” and suddenly a switch of bamboo materialized in Yammy’s hands, “…before…” a strike cut across his chest, “…I…” another slashed his inner left thigh, “…really…” one struck his right shin, “…get…” once more across his chest, “…upset!!!” Yammy bellowed.

The switch landed on his forced erection, pulling a choked cry from his throat.

Yammy had no idea what he was asking. One simply didn’t manifest their Zanpakuto in the company of others, especially before his entire estate! He’d only done so the first time because Yammy seemed as if he was ready to kill him and there had been no other way to communicate. At least, Yammy still pretended he couldn’t read, but by this point in his captivity, Byakuya would have bet hard money on it. There was no way someone as mentally challenged as Yammy was could keep the ruse of illiteracy up for fifteen years without slipping up once.

“The first time you did it I was beating you, so maybe I just haven’t beaten you enough,” Yammy snarled.

The switch came down upon his chest and thighs two dozen more times before he was kicked back over onto his stomach. He could hear the choking sobs of many of the staff members as they were forced to watch. When one woman, unable to bear it anymore, had turned away Yammy had lashed her with the switch, which, with his massive strength, left a large gash on the side of her face, severing one of her ears. Her blood joined the growing amount soaking into the wooden floor.

He breathed deeply, trying to concentrate through the pain. Senbonzakura was trying to offer him what comfort he could, but it was doing little good. Yammy kicked him onto his chest once more. A bruising grip latched onto his hips and pulled him up so he was forced to put all that weight on his lashed up chest. It was one thing to be tortured in front of an audience; it was another thing to be raped before his entire household.

 _“_ _Master please!_ _”_ Senbonzakura pleaded. _“_ _He won_ _’_ _t stop until we do this! There is no reason to continue making everyone suffer._ _”_

The others were suffering, forced to witness this atrocity. It was not something one did lightly, manifesting ones Zanpakuto before others. It was something taboo, but Senbonzakura was right. Yammy was not going to stop until either Byakuya died or Senbonzakura manifested. He didn’t want to know why the great brute wanted to see Senbonzakura, but he had run out of options, unless he truly wanted to die. Unfortunately, he needed to be closer to his blade to do so and he had no way to communicate that to Yammy.

It hurt so much, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally as Yammy thrust into him again, tearing his insides further so that blood from his inside passage joined the trails of blood from the switching. Once again it didn’t last long, but it certainly felt like an eternity to him. Semen joined the mess running down his thighs and the Tenth kicked him a third time upon standing up.

Yammy continued to scream at him, but Byakuya’s focus began to slip again. Suddenly, Senbonzakura’s voice came sharply into his mind shortly before searing pain erupted from his shoulder as his own Zanpakuto impaled him, pinning him to the wooden floor. He threw every ounce of what remained of his concentration towards his partner.

“Stop!!” Senbonzakura commanded firmly as he finally materialized. “One must be in close proximity to their Zanpakuto in order to manifest. My Master could not have done as you ordered regardless of the torment you visited upon him. Your Claim upon his person could not have ensured obedience either!”

Byakuya found his awareness wavering, the torture becoming too much for his body to handle. As he faded in and out, Senbonzakura also wavered in his manifestation. There was a mockery of a conversation going on, sounding so much like someone trying to get through to a rabid, snarling dog, but soon even listening was a chore. Eventually, even that retreated, until all that was left was the sound of his rapid heartbeat thudding in his head. His world faded until he finally fell into blessed darkness.


	11. Full Ward

“It always comes down in sheets when it rains,” Unohana sighed sadly as she picked up the latest chart to come to her attention even as two of her Division members wheeled the patient down the hall, the white sheets already stained red with the victim’s blood.

First, Gin’s pneumonia had flared up, thanks to having spent the day washing bed sheets outside in the cold weather. She’d been less than pleased to come home to find him shivering in his cubby with a high fever and coughs wracking his too-skinny frame.

Then, after she got him settled in comfortably at the 4th, Ggio had been dragged in by Ayasegawa Yumichika, both of them in rough shape, Ggio more so than Yumichika. The first seemed to have come down with a particularly nasty case of the flu on top of some injuries that hadn’t been given proper treatment. The second had taken a hard riding, since Ggio was unfit to share their master’s ‘attentions.’ Yumichika’s injuries weren’t all that terrible, but Unohana made sure to give him a jar of the miracle cream Szayel had devised for dealing with such things.

After she got the antiviral IV drip going for Ggio, with Yumichika and Soi Fon standing silent vigil over the sick Arrancar, a panicked Tesra carried Tatsuki through the front doors, the front of his white uniform tainted red with blood. They’d been practicing swordsmanship when a loose pebble had slipped out from under Tatsuki’s foot, resulting in Tesra’s swing putting a deep gash across her shoulder blade, and a sprained ankle. The Arrancar was distraught about the fact he’d harmed his mate while Tatsuki, thankfully, seemed to be taking the whole thing in stride. Even though the young human woman wore a grimace of pain on her face as one of Unohana’s staff knitted the wound closed with Kido, she kept reassuring Tesra that accidents happened and it wasn’t the first time something like that had happened to her.

The afternoon had been abnormally busy and now… now _this_. Several servants from the Kuchiki Estate had been brought in, one woman having had a large chunk of flesh torn from the side of her face, ear and all. She’d been in shock and Unohana had her best healers working on the woman. The rest had reiatsu poisoning, a side effect of weaker souls forced to endure exposure to large amounts of reiatsu.

However, that hadn’t been the worst of it.

Not by a long shot.

The worst of it lay motionless on the gurney before her. Kuchiki Byakuya barely breathed under the blood-stained sheets and the extent of his injuries made her want to sit down in the middle of the hallway and simply cry.

She knew Yammy tormented him, but this was enough to make her sick. She hadn’t realized he’d suffered this badly and there seemed to be no end to his injuries. Deep lacerations covered his body. His anal passage was horribly mutilated and blood was still oozed out, accompanied by semen. His nipples were raw and red from the clamps, bleeding in a few places where the metal teeth of the clips penetrated his skin. The cock ring had bitten deeply into his flesh, leaving a red, bleeding ring around his now soft shaft. It would be some time before that particular wound healed and she did not envy him when he had to urinate. She’d hesitated to order a catheter for that very reason, as it might do more damage. His hip and shoulder joints showed severe strain and spoke of having been a hairsbreadth away from dislocation. There were finger-shaped bruises on his hips and large bruises covered his ribs. The rib bones were also bruised and a few were even cracked. His jaw showed signs of having been strained; the deep welts across his checks spoke of a gag that had been tied tightly to his face. His body was covered in several deep laceration from a whip or crop and he had a hole in his shoulder, going through the shoulder bone, that looked like a rod or sword had been jabbed through him. To top it all off, he was severely dehydrated and suffering from blood loss, a deadly combination.

It horrified her to see him like this, just as it had horrified her ever time Gin had come back so injured. The difference being, of course, that Aizen knew what he was doing whereas Yammy clearly did not. Untreated, she had no doubt that Byakuya would have bled out. In fact, fifteen more minutes and it would have been too late for anyone but Orihime to have saved him, and given the poisoning of Yammy’s reiatsu in the sheer number of wounds, even that was debateable.

By the time she finally got him stabilized it was almost morning. Once she was certain he was resting as easily as was possible, she checked on her other patients. Gin was awake, shivering with fever and coughing every minute or so. He offered her a weak smile when she walked in but didn’t attempt to speak. She stayed long enough to get some warm miso soup into him before sending him to sleep with a simple Kido spell.

Ggio was sleeping deeply, as was Soi Fon, when she stepped into their room. The former Taichou sat in one of the more comfortable chairs in the room, one hand resting on her belly and the other holding one of Ggio’s. Someone had thoughtfully thrown a blanket over her shoulders and wadded up another one to provide the smaller woman with a pillow. Unohana didn’t have to look far for that ‘someone.’ Yumichika was the only one still awake and he offered her a ghost of his once-dazzling smiles as she walked in.

“How are they doing?” she asked, keeping her voice low.

“As good as can be expected,” he sighed. “Such an ugly thing they are being forced to endure.”

“Barragan still intends on killing the child then?”

Yumichika nodded his head, a look of abhorrence on his face. She shared his hatred for the Second’s plans. Perhaps she would speak to her husband about it. She knew that several of the others were not that pleased with Barragan’s callous attitude towards the child. Perhaps she could get one of the others to adopt it after it was born.

“Please, let me know if they wake up,” she instructed him.

“I will,” he assured her.

Tesra and Tatsuki were in the next room, the two of them sharing the small bed. Tatsuki slept, curled up against Tesra’s chest with her bandaged shoulder up off the bed and the arm with her IV line wrapped around his chest. For all of Tatsuki’s bravado about the inevitability of training injuries, she’d lost a great deal of blood from her shoulder wound. Thankfully, the young human woman looked better already and would probably go home in a day or two, once Unohana was certain no infection had settled in. Bacteria didn’t tend to live long on metal and Tesra took good care of his Zanpakuto, so the chances were slim. Still, it was better to be safe than sorry as Tatsuki had landed on her shoulder and who knew what she’d picked up from the dirt on the training field.

Tesra, on the other hand, was wide awake and had a rueful expression on his face.

“She is sleeping well?” Unohana asked.

“Yes. She woke up two hours ago complaining she was thirsty and her shoulder was sore so I helped her drink the tea you provided,” he answered softly.

“That is good. Tesra-san, do not blame yourself for such accidents. As unhappy as it is for me to say it, as I dislike anyone coming to the 4th in pain, Tatsuki’s injury is the one I’m the least worried about, and the only one I’ve seen today that does not fill me with deep sorrow,” she sighed.

“Thank you, I think.”

“I will leave you two. Try and get some rest yourself Tesra-san. You will do her no good if you are unable to care for her due to your own fatigue.”

“I will try,” he hastily replied.

“See that you do.”

Unohana left the young couple and turned back towards Byakuya’s room. The sun was coming up over the horizon at this point and thankfully, the noble still slept. The longer he did so, the more his body would have time to rest.

“WHERE IS HE?” A loud voice roared from the entranceway, followed by a rush of malicious reiatsu. “Get the fuck out of my way, trash!”

Unohana was generally a gentle person, but at present, she was furious, and not just because Yammy had nearly killed Byakuya, but because he was disrupting her Division and his oppressive reiatsu posed a threat to her patients.

“Yammy Llargo, you will cease your ranting at once,” she ordered firmly as she marched into the lobby.

He turned his sneer her way, before it faltered slightly as he realized he was speaking to Aizen’s wife and a woman whose power rivalled his own. Her staff retreated as she walked closer, heading towards the patient rooms to make sure the rush of malevolent reiatsu hadn’t harmed any of the occupants.

“Where is my pet? I did not authorize for him to be taken here!” he snarled.

“Byakuya-san is recovering, and will not likely wake for days,” she answered coldly. “I recall that my husband issued orders stating that you Espada were to take good care of those you have Claimed in this time of war. Yet Kuchiki Byakuya was brought to me nearly beaten to death. I am sure my husband will be pleased to know you disobeyed him.”

She did not condone torture for any reason, but she was close to making an exception for Yammy’s sorry carcass.

“Now, if you do not leave here at once, I will remove you myself,” she said, the threat falling from her lips with ease.

“I would like to see you try,” he growled, stalking up to her with clenched, raised fists.

She made herself ready to do so, to show him why even the former Sotaichou would meekly crawl back into bed when she so much as smiled at him, but she was spared from doing so by a new voice that joined the conversation. A pity really, because she really wanted to give Yammy a piece of her mind, and her fist, and he had given her the perfect excuse to exercise some skills she hadn’t used in a long time.

“Now this is not what I expected to walk in on this morning when I came to see how your night went, my dear.”

Both of them turned to face the newcomer. Unohana bowed lightly and greeted her husband softly, while Yammy went as white as a sheet and took several steps away from her.

“Yammy, is there a good reason for raising your voice to my wife?”

“She won’t let me see my pet,” he grumbled like a spoiled child being denied a toy.

“Why is Byakuya here?” Aizen asked, turning to Unohana with a frown on his face.

“He was severely beaten and will need several days, possibly a week or more, to recover before he can be discharged. Would you like a full report on his injuries?” she asked, holding out what looked like a thick stack of papers.

Aizen’s frown deepened, which was never a good sign. Fortunately, that frown seemed to be levelled Yammy’s way.

“Did I, or did I not, specifically order you to keep your pet in functioning condition, Yammy?” Aizen asked, eyes narrowing.

“He was disobeying,” Yammy defended himself, a hint of panic in his voice.

“Are you saying he is no longer Claimed? Shall I have him executed?”

“No!”

“Are you certain Yammy? Or are you just incompetent when it comes to using your Claim?”

“I know how to use it!”

“Clearly not, if you cannot get you pet to obey a single command.”

“What command couldn’t Byakuya obey?” Unohana interjected, curious despite herself.

She knew Byakuya, and if there had been a way to obey a command and spare his staff from the suffering they’d clearly endured, he would have done so.

“His stupid sword wouldn’t talk to me,” he grumbled.

Unohana just looked at Yammy in shock, and even Aizen seemed mildly surprised.

“You beat him and raped him over something he had no control over?” she asked sharply, her anger readily apparent.

“Unohana…” Aizen warned her.

She forced her swell of enraged reiatsu to subside. Unohana was hard pressed to think of another time she’d been so furious. Upset yes, especially over the things Aizen had done to Gin, but he had never punished Gin for not doing something that was literally impossible.

“Come, Yammy, you and I need to have a little talk,” Aizen ordered. “Wait for me outside,”

If it was at all possible, Yammy went even paler. “Y…yes, Kami-sama,” he stammered, before bowing and exiting the building.

Aizen turned his attention back to his wife, taking in the shadows under her eyes and the slump in her shoulders that she simply didn’t have enough energy to hide at present. Her brief burst of adrenaline over the challenge with Yammy was gone now, leaving exhaustion in its wake. It had been a very long 24 hours.

“You, my dear, will go into your office and rest,” he ordered. “Unless a battle occurs tonight or an emergency arises that only you can handle, I expect you in bed. You have already shirked your duties to me enough this week.”

“As you wish,” she offered him a bow.

“Excellent. See to it that Byakuya recovers. Senbonzakura is a strong asset to the war effort and I would hate to lose that particular weapon right now.”

“I will,” she promised.

Aizen moved towards her and kissed her gently on the forehead. She quelled the sudden urge to reach up and wipe away any trace of his touch.

“I know you will, my darling wife,” he smiled, before turning about and leaving.

After a moment, she felt her heart rate return to normal and she heard her staff start to filter back to their posts. She felt exhausted as the long hours and emotional upheaval finally caught up to her.

“I will be in my private chamber, resting, should anyone need me,” she informed her staff, not looking at any of them lest her carefully constructed façade of calm crumble in front of them.

“Hai Taichou, I’ll send some tea in to you in a few minutes,” her current Fukutaichou responded.

“Thank you, I would like that.”

She left the lobby and headed towards the couch in her office to get some much needed rest, but not before poking her nose in all of the rooms on her way back by. Everyone but Byakuya was awake now, the disturbance caused by Yammy’s overbearing and ugly reiatsu having woken them all. She made a point to stop in Gin’s room, if only to assure him that Aizen’s displeasure had been for another, not them. The thin, silver-haired man fell back onto the pillows in a relieved heap and that one bit of body language almost undid her composure.

Unohana bowed and opened her office door. She waited until her second-in-command brought in a small pot of tea and a cup on one of standard hospital trays and left it on her desk. She kept her calm long enough to down a cup of the stuff, recognizing some of the herbs in it as ones that would help her relax enough to sleep. Considering her state of exhaustion, it might have been a bit of overkill on the part of her subordinate, but it was nice to know that someone who actually cared about her well-being had paid attention. Then she stretched out on the couch and slowly let her tranquil mask fall away, until all of the misery she’d witnessed overnight could be read on her face and in the tears that trickled down her cheeks to disappear into the upholstery as she cried herself to into a fitful sleep.

“Really, Tatsuki-chan, a rock?” Orihime exclaimed, shaking her head in exasperation.

“Yeah, don’t pretend it’s never happened to you. As I recall, you used to be quite the klutz!” Tatsuki huffed.

Orihime giggled as her golden shield surrounded her childhood friend. Within minutes, the gash was gone, leaving Tatsuki’s shoulder stiff, but fully-healed.

“There,” Orihime smiled happily. “Why didn’t you come see me when it happened?”

“It wasn’t a big deal, and judging by the reiatsu storm going on, you were otherwise engaged,” Tatsuki answered as she worked her upper arm to try to stretch the connecting muscle.

“Oh, right,” Orihime blushed a lovely shade of crimson and had the good grace to seem embarrassed.

Tatsuki ceased moving her arm for a moment while Tesra removed the tape and stitches that had been used to pull her slashed up shoulder back together again. Her flesh was once more whole, looking as if she had never been wounded.

“Excellent job as always, Orihime-chan!” Tatsuki said with a grin. “Now that _that_ _’_ _s_ out of the way, who’s up for a sparring session?”

Tesra gave his mate an odd look before shaking his head and pulling her flush against him. Tatsuki didn’t resist and let him nestle against her, relaxing comfortably in his arms as he held her like a drowning man.

“I was so worried about you,” he murmured into her hair. “When I saw the fountain of blood…” he shivered and swallowed the rest, unable to continue.

“I am fine,” she assured him, sounding a little testy. “Now stop that or you’ll have me crying, and I don’t like crying,” she told him, although her voice did waver a bit. “Now, about that training…”

“I would love to Tatsuki-chan, but I agreed to help heal as many as I could before the next battle,” Orihime sighed. “What about Rangiku? Now that the Defence Net is down is Nnoitra-san letting her train again?”

“Yes, but we have been training together for so long now that there really isn’t much more we can learn from each other. We have trained together so long now that our regimen is stagnant, and we need fresh blood. I heard yours tastes good, if Ulquiorra’s moans are anything to go by,” Tatsuki sent her childhood friend a lecherous smirk.

Orihime’s blush deepened by a few shades of pink and she stuttered for a moment before regaining her composure.

“Well, what about Lilynette-chan?” she suggested. “She trained with us for a little while, remember? Oh, and Hana-chan too, but she might be too busy with work now that she’s a Shinigami.”

“Those are good possibilities,” Tatsuki agreed. “Anyhow, we should probably leave and give up the room and bed for someone who needs it more than I do.”

“And I should go help the next person.” Orihime sighed. “I’ll try and stop by if I finish here at a reasonable time.”

“Here’s hoping.”

Tatsuki jumped from the bed and stretched before heading for the door, Tesra by her side. The training conundrum was starting to get to her. As she had told Orihime, she and Rangiku had almost exhausted every avenue they had to work with and were really only keeping it up to stay in shape. Rangiku especially fussed over having been forced into a house-wife situation where the only exercise she truly got was doing the household chores. Lately she had been whining about weight gain. Tatsuki had taken one look at her figure and thought her friend was just being paranoid.

They passed by one of the other active Divisions on their way towards the main gate that would let them out into the 1st District where most of the Espada and a good number of Numeros had claimed land. She paused, listening to the sounds of a weapons drill coming from behind the wall.

“Hey, Tesra?”

“Hmm?”

“What would you think if I started hanging around Karin and her Division, you know, for the sake of training? I am not thinking about becoming a Shinigami, but getting in on some weapons classes might help me get better. They’d also allow me to learn something more than what I can get from Rangiku right now,” she explained. Tesra came to a standstill, as if giving her idea some thought, then nodded.

“If that is what you desire,” he agreed.

“Then I’ll look into it tomorrow,” she said before continuing onwards towards the main gate.

Ajuga was in a foul mood as she stormed through the 4th Division for the second time that day. She had arrived earlier in the afternoon to request some supplies. Szayel had run out of formaldehyde and needed a few things for the dissection as well. She had barely been through the doors when she had caught the scent of Byakuya’s blood, as well as Gin’s scent, which sent a warning jolt of adrenaline through her system. He had told her long ago that he wasn’t permitted to leave the Palace _except_ on special occasions.

She didn’t like what ‘special occasion’ might mean this time around for Gin.

She’d rushed to Byakuya’s room first, startling nurses as she went. He was in rough shape and she felt an overwhelming urge to kill Yammy, one she barely managed to keep in check. He was unconscious, his body hooked up to several machines. It reminded her far too much of the times ‘take-ji had been similarly tethered and she grabbed his chart at the end of the bed, understanding most of it because of the many times Jushiro had been taken here for a respite from his illness.

“Excuse me, but you shouldn’t be in here. Kuchiki-sama needs his rest and isn’t to be disturbed,” a soft voice spoke from the door.

Ajuga turned a nasty glare on the nurse, who squeaked and ran when she realized she’d pissed off an Arrancar, not just some concerned Shinigami from the 2nd Division. Ajuga ignored her and set the chart back down before taking one limp, pale hand in hers, shocked at how cold it felt.

“Oh Bya-san,” she whispered. “Would that I could do something, but even if I was strong enough to take him on, Aizen,” she spat the name, “would just step in anyway and Yammy might use the Claim to make you fight me too,” she sighed.

Aizen had forbidden them from fighting over Claiming rights, and any fight on Byakuya’s half would fall under such a category. Ajuga truly hated Aizen, a hate that she did her best to hide as best she could. She’d seen Aizen’s cruelty up close when she’d watched him strip the flesh from Gin’s back over something as stupid as wet tiles in a bathroom and a little bit of broken glass. She still had nightmares over it sometimes, although she told her mother when she asked that it was simply dreams of a hunt gone wrong.

“Ajuga-chan,” another soft voice from the door called, but this one was familiar and welcomed.

“Will Bya-san be okay?” she asked, not looking up.

“It will take some time, but he will recover,” Unohana assured her as the elderly woman joined her at the bedside.

“He’s so cold,” Ajuga whispered.

“He lost a great deal of blood. A chilled body is usually a side effect of exsanguination. He will recover, but it will take some time.”

“Orihime-neesan could fix him.”

“Probably, but doing so would just return him to Yammy sooner. It would be best to let him recover on his own.”

Ajuga nodded her head in agreement before forcing herself to stand up and leave the room, the only sound that of the machinery. Unohana had remained in the room, picking up the chart and recording the next set of vitals. Ajuga took that time to follow the other scent she had caught at the door: Gin’s.

She found him in a room in a secluded wing. He was sleeping as well, but unlike Byakuya he only smelled of sickness and the only thing he had attached to him was an IV line. She had ducked out, got the formaldehyde Szayel had asked for, ran it back to him and told him she had something she had to do and didn’t know when she would be back, before bolting. Now she was storming down the halls for the second time that day, heading for Gin’s room first. He was awake now, if ‘awake’ meant ‘flat on one’s back with one’s eyes half-open.’

“Ajuga-chan?”

Gin’s voice sounded terribly weak

“I brought you something to eat. I know the food here ain’t bad, but it gets boring after a while,” she chuckled, covering her anger at his condition with as much cheer as she could muster. Ajuga set the paper bag down she carried on the table in front of him. “I still have no idea how you could like these things,” she commented as she made a disgusted face.

“Ya should’na be here,” he commented, but he did pick up the bag with a hand that showed just how tired and worn down he was and his blue eyes lit up when he saw what it contained. “Ya remembered!” he weakly exclaimed, surprised.

“How could I forget? I swear I can still taste the damn thing” she shivered and stuck her tongue out. “You _should_ be eating miso soup, but Mama always said one has to heal the soul _and_ the body.”

Gin probably would have said something, but his mouth was full as he took a large bite out of the dried persimmon he cradled. It was as if the persimmons were the very fruit of life and he hadn’t eaten in a year. Ajuga took the opportunity to bow to him.

“I am sorry I haven’t been by to visit as much lately,” she apologized. “You must get lonely being stuck in that room all day by yourself.”

“S’ not so bad. Unohana is there ev’ry evening an’ she’s a’ways nice ta me.”

“You’re a terrible liar,” she declared, her voice flat. “Not about Unohana-san being nice, but the other part.”

“Really? I use ‘ta be really good at it,” he offered her a bittersweet smile, his eyes closed.

“Well, you suck at it now,” she snorted.

They sat in companionable silence for a bit while Gin finished the treat he was working on plus one more. She’d managed to continue her odd visits to the Palace, despite her promise to Hana-chan. Ajuga just couldn’t leave him to suffer alone, plus she got a thrill out of the danger that sneaking in and out of Aizen’s Palace brought her. She knew her mother would have a meltdown if Karin ever found out. Somehow, she also knew her father would appreciate and approve of the invasion into Kami’s sanctuary, although he would probably chew her out anyway for appearances sake. Her father loved her mother too much to risk having sex withheld.

“So, how long are you going to be here?” Ajuga asked after he finished his third one.

“I dun know. A day or two, at minimum…” he answered brokenly.

“I guess it’s a good thing Orihime-neesan can’t cure sickness, hmm?” Ajuga commented. “Although, if she could, then ‘take-ji would be in full health.”

“How is Ukitake-san?” Gin asked.

“He’s doing much better. The drugs Mama got him started on are keeping the TuberLocust under control. It still flares up if he’s too stressed out, but otherwise he’s the picture of health” she answered. He seemed relieved about that.

“Have you seen Rangiku?”

This time the man’s voice was very quiet and tinged with worry.

“Not lately, I should probably visit her and ‘tsuki-neechan,” Ajuga mused thoughtfully. “It’s been busy with the battles, although Mama gets upset that I keep participating,” she sighed in annoyance. “Anyhow, they were both fine last time I saw them, maybe a bit stir crazy because Nnoitra still keeps her locked up in the house all day. ‘tsuki-neechan tries to spend as much time there as she can with Tesra-niisan.”

“It’s good she has a friend,” he smiled weakly.

“Yeah,” Ajuga agreed. “But you should probably get some more sleep,” Ajuga commented. “If Unohana-Taichou finds out I’ve been keeping you up she might not let me see Bya-san.”

“Hmm,” he agreed, eyes already drifting shut again before he bolted awake. “Byakuya’s here?”

The look on his face made Ajuga want to kick herself for opening her mouth. What was done was done, however. She sighed and tried to keep her explanation brief.

“Yammy hurt him really bad. Unohana-Taichou seemed really upset over it too. He’s hooked up to a lot of machines right now but he’s stable” she answered with a growl.

Ajuga forced her temper to cool before she did something rash. Instead, she persuaded Gin to lie back down and tucked the covers around his shoulders. She had learned her lesson about keeping her temper under control over issues like this when she had shredded her mother’s arms the night Aizen had nearly blinded Jushiro. She never wanted to hurt a friend or family member like that again. As Starrk had coldly pointed out to her afterwards, she was lucky her claws hadn’t hit a major artery or her mother might not have survived.

At the time she’d been upset, but now she recalled the little talk Starrk had had with her, once she calmed down a bit, about restraining oneself least she hurt others around her. He was their little pack’s Alpha, albeit a lazy one that let her Papa run the joint. She knew better than to disobey or truly challenge him. Therefore, as hard and as difficult as it was, she curbed her instincts, all of which screamed out to her to maim and destroy Yammy Llargo in a way worse than what she had once wanted to do to Aizen for hurting ‘take-ji.

“You need to rest,” she chided Gin, pulling the coverlet up.

“Hai, hai…” he agreed, but she could tell he was worried.

“I’ll let you know how he’s doing when I see you again, okay?” she offered.

“I would like that, thank you, Ajuga-chan.”

“No problem,” she smiled.

With Gin seen too, she returned to Byakuya’s room. She was happy to see some of the machines had been removed and he was looking a little healthier. She could feel trace levels of Orihime’s reiatsu near the bed, indicating that Unohana had probably asked Ulquiorra’s mate to tend to the worse of the injuries, which meant that even though the healer wanted Byakuya to take as much time here to heal, the extent of the damage to her calligraphy teacher had been graver than initially thought. It was one thing to delay Byakuya’s full recovery to keep him out of Yammy’s hands as long as possible; it was another to leave him in critical condition.

Ajuga sat down in the spare chair and took one pale hand into her own. It was still cold but at least it sounded like he was breathing easier and it was a lot quieter in the room without all the equipment running. She held his hand for some time before her back started to cramp from leaning forward.

She gently replaced his hand under the blankets before standing up. At the nearest Nurses’ Station, she asked for some blank paper and a calligraphy set. Since all of the Divisions still used the old ink, brush and ink wells for their reports, it was easy to procure one. She returned to Byakuya’s room, laid out the paper on the small desk by his bed, got the ink well going, and stared at the blank sheet of paper for some time before finally dipping the brush into the ink and setting to work.

She paused when Unohana came in to check on Byakuya. Ajuga could smell the salt water on her indicating she’d been crying at some point today. Ajuga didn’t blame her. What Yammy had done to Byakuya almost had her in tears and the only thing holding her back was the disgustingly, uncomfortable knowledge that Yammy was stronger than her and still had a free Claim slot. She did not want to entertain the thought of picking a fight she wasn’t sure she could win outright and quickly brushed it aside.

“Ajuga, I didn’t realize you were still here,” Unohana commented.

“Sorry. I assure you I have just been sitting here keeping him company. Unfortunately, I know the drill.”

“It’s quite alright. I think Byakuya-san would appreciate the company, even though he would never say so” Unohana assured her. “I do have to ask you to leave for now though while I check him over and run a few tests. I have not been authorized by his family to share his condition with outsiders.”

Unohana sounded apologetic about this.

“That’s okay. I wanted to check up on another friend anyway” Ajuga assured her. “Will it be okay if I return once you’re done… for a little while?”

“Of course,” Unohana offered her a small smile.

“I’ll be back in an hour or so then.”

Ajuga left her things on the table and walked back down the corridors to Gin’s room. He was sleeping and she left him to it. She did leave him a note though, letting him know she had checked in on him and that Byakuya was all right. She added that she would check on Rangiku-neechan for him as well. With an hour to kill, she left for Tatsuki and Tesra’s house. If she was lucky, they would be there and she could ask Tatsuki how Rangiku was doing. It wasn’t that Ajuga necessarily feared Nnoitra but she wasn’t exactly on friendly terms with him either and it was best to avoid situations that could lead to trouble.


	12. Punishments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aizen is unhappy with Yammy and Renji witnesses something he wished he never did.

Aizen was very unhappy. No, he thought, ‘unhappy’ was far too mild a word to describe his state of mind. First, his wife had failed, again, to be in bed upon his arrival home, making it four times within the last week. He expected such to happen when a battle occurred, hence why two of those times had been acceptable and expected, but not on a calm night like this. To add to his displeasure, his staff had informed him that the reason the room that should have held his two toys was empty was because Gin had relapsed and Unohana had brought him back to the 4th. He might have been more upset that she had brought him down herself when they had servants capable of doing so, but the gate guards had informed him that she’d left _two hours_ before she was expected to be in bed waiting for him, and that told him something else was going on. He was about to leave for the 4 Division for answers when a member from that Division came jogging up to the palace gates, panic written on his face.

“Kami-sama,” the Shinigami dropped to the ground in proper bow of respect.

“Speak,” he ordered.

“I am here to inform you that Unohana-Taichou is in the middle of conducting surgery on a critically injured patient. She apologizes for failing in her duty to serve you and is uncertain on how long it will take to stabilize the patient. She would also like to apologize for not informing you sooner, but she lost track of the time in the surgery room.”

Aizen was impressed that, while the subordinate was clearly shaking in fear, his voice was steady. He was not overly surprised as he’d seen even the most timmid member of the 4th Division tend to the needs of members from the highly aggressive former 11th. That entire Division had gone down fighting, with the exception of three. One was now a prostitute for Barragan and the other two were running with the Escapees. The 4th Division remained alive, for the most part. He supposed there was a lesson in there for those who chose to look for one.

“I see. See to it that she rests when she gets out of surgery” he ordered.

“Hai, Kami-sama.”

“You are dismissed.”

He didn’t watch the man leave, but rather retired for dinner before taking his pleasure of the latest serving girl. It wasn’t until the next morning that he walked down to the 4th. Unohana had not returned home yet. That told him that the patient must have been in dire straits. He knew that Unohana would not risk his ire so soon after the last altercation as she cared far too much for Gin’s well-being. He expected to arrive at the 4th to find his wife had just gone to bed in her Division quarters.

He did not expect to walk into the middle of a budding fight.

Yammy was screaming at his wife, who held her ground and seemed to be losing what little of her patience she had left. Not that just anyone would be able to tell. She reeked of exhaustion, but again, that would have been apparent only to those who knew her well.

“Now this is not what I expected to walk in on this morning when I came to see how your night went, my dear,” he spoke up, drawing their attention.

Unohana bowed lightly and murmured a proper greeting. Yammy, wisely, had taken several steps away from his wife and seemed about to piss himself. Even someone like the Tenth knew better than to be so forward with his wife when he was standing there.

“Yammy, is there a good reason for raising your voice to my wife?” he asked. Of course, in Aizen’s mind such a reason did not exist, but it would be interesting to see what excuse the idiot could concoct.

“She won’t let me see my pet,” he grumbled like a spoiled child being denied a toy.

“Why is Byakuya here?” Aizen inquired, turning to his wife.

There hadn’t been a battle of any kind that day and by its nature, Senbonzakura usually kept the Kuchiki lord from injury. He suspected he knew the answer and Unohana’s reply confirmed it. He was impressed she was able to keep her voice steady as she answered him, despite her upset emotions and exhaustion. When she was done with her report, he let his expression do the talking for him and glared at Yammy.

“Did I, or did I not, specifically order you to keep your pet in functioning condition, Yammy?” Aizen prompted, hoping that a repetition of that order would jog the lout’s memory.

He had no such luck.

“He was disobeying!” Yammy protested, sounding a bit panicked.

“Are you saying he is no longer Claimed? Shall I have him executed?” he inquired, although he doubted that Byakuya’s Claim had fallen off. Of all of the ‘pets’, Byakuya’s Claim seemed to be refreshed on a weekly basis, if not more often.

“No!”

“Are you certain Yammy? Or are you just incompetent when it comes to using your Claim?”

Aizen tossed the challenge out there, to see what the Tenth would do. He knew how Claims worked. There was no way Byakuya could have ignored or disobeyed a direct order coming from Yammy. Yammy’s lack of tact and questionable intelligence made his orders often simple and concise. Ironically, that made it much harder for someone to squeak around them.

“I know how to use it.”

“Clearly not, if you cannot get your pet to obey a single command.”

“What command couldn’t Byakuya obey?” Unohana suddenly asked.

Aizen held back a sigh. He had been working up to that question. It was always best to get people on the defensive so they wouldn’t have time to concoct a lie. People trying to keep their hide, proverbial or otherwise, intact were frequently far more truthful than those that had the time to think up excuses. Fortunately, Yammy was about as mentally agile as a boulder and his answer took Aizen by surprise.

How had Yammy ever gotten the idea he could speak to Senbonzakura? He planned on learning just that, but first he needed to get his wife calmed down and rested.

“Unohana…” he warned her before she could get more than a sentence of her upcoming rant up.

The fact she was even about to let loose verbally demonstrated just how exhausted she was. Yammy must have really ladled on the abuse this time, and Aizen was not pleased about it or the effect it had on his wife.

“Come, Yammy, you and I need to have a little talk. Wait for me outside.”

Yammy’s brain finally registered that he was in deep trouble. “Y…yes, Kami-sama,” he stuttered, before making what amounted to a temporary escape

“You, my dear, will go into your office and rest,” he ordered. “Unless a battle occurs tonight or an emergency arises that only you can handle, I expect you in bed. You have already shirked your duties to me enough this week,” he warned her.

While he was not pleased that she had failed him twice in such a short amount of time, for her to be this exhausted indicated that Byakuya must have been very beaten up, and that angered him. It meant that Yammy had disobeyed his orders to his Espada to keep their pets in good enough condition to fight. Then Aizen remembered which of his Espada he had to deal with.

 _Granted, it_ _’_ _s been some time since I issued that order. It_ _’_ _s been over 5 years now. I suppose the real wonder is that he obeyed for that long,_ Aizen conceded.

“As you wish,” Unohana offered him a bow.

“Excellent. See to it that Byakuya recovers. Senbonzakura is a strong asset to the war and I would hate to lose that particular weapon right now.”

Byakuya’s Bankai was capable of holding entire quadrants of the field and that was a big asset considering the number of insects that threw themselves against them. Byakuya himself was also an accomplished soldier and one that didn’t need too much direction. Good, intelligent warriors were hard to find and if the war dragged on, and if Yammy couldn’t keep his hands to himself, well, Byakuya was a bigger asset than Yammy against the Swarm. Aizen considered the possibility of a transfer of ownership.

 _Ulquiorra maybe,_ he mused. _He still has a Claim spot free and is a prime example of loyalty. Perhaps Harribel would be interested in him too._

He put the thought aside for the moment as Unohana assured him she would rest. He gently kissed her forehead before dismissing her. Then he went to deal with a problem he hadn’t expected to have to manage today.

Yammy was waiting for him by the gates to the 4th Division, and while he had regained a bit of colour, he still looked fearful. Aizen was pleased with that, at least. He indicated the Espada should follow him as they began to walk down the street towards his palace.

“Did I, or did I not, tell you that you were to keep your pet functional at all times?”

“Yes Kami-sama,” Yammy mumbled. “You did.”

“Then, why did you disobey me?” he asked, even though he had an idea about what the dolt would say.

Every Espada had an aspect and Yammy’s was that of rage. Once he started getting angry, the violence tended to escalate. If Byakuya had been unable to comply with a Claim enforced-order it definitely would have made Yammy angry, and the continuation of perceived defiance would only work the Tenth up that much more. In short, he could not be too upset with Yammy, much in the same way one ought not to be too upset over a spider eating a fly. It was simply their nature and no amount of beatings or positive reinforcement would change it. Any behavioural modification would prove temporary as well.

Yammy confirmed what he already knew, the Espada groping for words to try and explain himself and stumbling over his sentences. Aizen only paid him partial attention. Punishing Yammy wasn’t going to change anything in the long run, but it would take care of the issue in the short term. He continued to ignore Yammy’s whiny rambling as he pondered what he was going to do to make certain something like this didn’t happen again.

His first choice, physical torture, would have to be the primary method. His other methods, the first being mental, would be lost on Yammy while the second, rape, would be unpleasant for him. Yammy’s sheer ugliness decided that for him. A pity, because torture always turned him on and he was getting tired of the domestic help at the Palace. He was going to have to rotate the staff out again soon, and training a new round of servants would take time and resources.

Aizen’s mind drifted to the two male pieces of meat he enjoyed making squirm and whimper beneath him. Unfortunately, Gin was out of commission as he was in the 4th with pneumonia. His other favourite whipping boy, Szayel, had taken refuge behind Karin’s hakama and hadn’t done anything lately that demanded punishment. Granted, Aizen could always think up a reason. There was that bit of back talk when the Defence Net went down. Then he frowned irritably. He had also promised Karin and Grimmjow that they would deal out any punishments Szayel earned, and he _was_ a god of his word.

Unless, of course, they were not here to mete that punishment out. That was always an option. A smile crossed his face at the thought and Yammy instantly stopped blabbering. It was amazing how a creature as large as Yammy could suddenly cringe and appear like a small frightened rabbit.

“Does distance affect what a Claimer feels coming from the one Claimed?” Aizen asked the Espada, his tone as casual as if they were discussing the weather.

“Yes,” Yammy answered hesitantly, obviously confused by the sudden change in topic.

“Excellent.”

His smile widened and Yammy actually began to shake in fear. Good, he loved the taste of fear. By now, they had reached the entrance to his Palace.

“Please be so kind as to escort my guest to the basement,” Aizen ordered the two guards at the gate.

“Basement? What’s down there?” Yammy asked. His brows knitted together as if his brain was pulling double duty trying to figure out what Aizen had arranged.

“You will find out soon enough. I would be very upset to hear you didn’t want to see it.”

Yammy wisely followed the two guards into the palace. Two more quickly took their place.

“Please send for Karin, Grimmjow and Starrk. I have a mission for them” Aizen ordered one of the new set of guards to emerge from the gatehouse.

The Arrancar he selected saluted smartly before disappearing into a Sonido. Aizen continued back to his chambers. He had planned on doing this anyway, but Yammy’s fuck-up pushed the date forward a little bit. It would be better to kill two birds with one stone. He tracked Yammy’s reiatsu down to the basement and his smile darkened when he felt the spike of terror that raced through it. Even Yammy could recognize a torture chamber when he saw it.

Aizen sent out a wash of his reiatsu towards the Espada, freezing him in place and crushing him beneath his overwhelming power before Yammy could attempt to kill the guards escorting him to escape. It was far more satisfying tasting the terror, knowing that every minute his victim got to stare at the implements of pain that filled his playroom in the basement was another minute that terror intensified. Even someone with Yammy’s limited imagination could think up all sorts of horrible ways in which it could be used.

He felt himself getting hard from just a small taste of the fright coming from his private playroom and shifted a bit so he was more comfortable. Perhaps one of the servant girls would have to do for now, before he saw to Yammy’s punishment. First, he had to send out those he had summoned on their mission. Ironically, it was a real mission that would benefit his Empire and not just one to get them out from underfoot so he could indulge himself. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t just take what he wanted, as no one would truly be able to stop him, but it was far more satisfying to play these games, to manipulate people into taking the direction he desired. It made the spoils all the sweeter.

After a ten minute wait the three he had summoned arrived. Starrk looked half-asleep, Grimmjow looked annoyed and Karin looked weary.

“Ah, excellent,” he practically purred. “Thank you for coming so quickly. I have decided to initiate the next phase of the Portal Scarab Operation ahead of schedule. I trust you know what to do?” he asked.

All three gave varying forms of agreement and did a poor job of hiding their surprise. The initial plan had been to send them out next week. Ah well, so far Karin had failed to see the portals but had caught sight of the Swarm, which indicated that the portals created by the Swarm’s Scarabs were going up just out of her current range.

“I ask that you leave immediately after informing your charges. Karin, speak to my quartermaster on the way out and he will see to it that you are properly provisioned for the trip.”

“Hai, Kami-sama,” she bowed.

Karin looked like she wanted to argue or protest, but she clearly bit her tongue. Grimmjow also looked displeased, but an elbow into his side by his pet silenced him before he could protest. Aizen was highly amused, but kept it to himself. Starrk also appeared annoyed but he expected that, since anything that involved actual effort annoyed the male half of the Primera.

Aizen dismissed them and remained sitting regally while the three retreated from his presence. He waited until he felt them arrive at the quartermaster’s office before rising from his throne. With business out of the way, it was time for some pleasure. The only question was which servant girl he should summon to relieve his sexual tension on before heading to the basement. Perhaps the one that, in the right light and with her hair done up in that adorable little bun, reminded him of Hinamori-chan. He would need to give them some time to get some distance before he summoned Szayel.

 _Tomorrow evening should suffice, as much as it will be annoying to have to wait. Still, a little bit of anticipation makes the meal tastier,_ he couldn’t help but to think with a smirk.

When the summons to Aizen’s Palace came, Renji felt his heart leap into his throat. Apprehension fought it out with stone-cold fear for supremacy. His first worry was that the jig was up and that Aizen had learned that it was Nel, one of Yoruichi’s little band of Escapees, that held his Claim and not Szayel. Such information would probably lead to a swift, if he were lucky, execution. It would probably be a long, slow and painful one if Aizen discovered he’s been passing on information to her. He wasn’t the only one of course. Nel had let slip that Karin and Yoruichi shared the occasional correspondence, which took him by surprise. Then again, that little information exchange the two women had going was what had allowed Renji to fly under Aizen’s radar for the last five years, meeting in secret with one of the best things that had ever happened to him in this or any other Realm. What hadn’t taken him by surprise was learning that Yoruichi still dropped by the Kuchiki Estate a handful of times a year.

He wondered what the two talked about while she was there. It wasn’t as if she could have missed what his former Taichou had to endure at the brute’s hands.

The guards at the entrance to Aizen’s Palace let him pass without confrontation and a male servant met him on the other side of the elaborate gates. The silent young man led him into the Palace and Renji’s anxiety skyrocketed as they walked down a set of stairs. As they descended his nose picked up the metallic scent of blood and the stink of fear. Both scents grew stronger the farther down the stairs he walked. He could also hear the sound of someone spraying water, and, very faintly, whimpering.

The servant left him standing in front of a set of closed doors and scuttled quickly away without another word. Renji didn’t blame him. The iron-dark stench of freshly spilled blood was thick in the air, as were a slew of other scents that took him a moment to place. When he figured out what they were, he had to steel himself, lest he imitate the servant and flee. It had been some time since he’d had to survive on the wild streets of one of the worst Rukongai districts, but he would never forget the stale, and even fresh, smell of sweat, alcohol, blood and semen. The only thing missing was the sharp reek of cheap, plentiful sake, spilled on the ground, soaking through clothing and puked up in back alleys.

Uncertain of what he was supposed to do, and wanting to run the longer he stayed there, he hesitantly knocked on the door. He didn’t have to wait long before someone bid him enter. He screwed up his courage, preparing for what might await him on the other side. Renji opened the heavy door and barely made it a step into the room before his blood ran cold.

He stood in a huge room that seemed to be a combination of torture chamber, throne room and BDSM-designed bedroom. His eyes took a second to adjust before he realized there was a large pool of red liquid under what looked like the prone figure of… Yammy Llargo. The Espada seemed to be unconscious and despite the horrific sight, Renji couldn’t help but feel like the bastard got a small taste of what he deserved. To Renji’s eye, no stranger to wounds having spent time in the 11th Division, it looked as if Yammy had been strung up there for a day or two and his back whipped until the flesh of it hung in tatters.

After what Renji had learned the bastard did to Byakuya, the punishment almost seemed too light, even as he felt disgust that anyone could do such a thing to another. The sound of water spraying he’d heard earlier came from Ichimaru Gin, looking very sick and definitely pale as he sprayed down that end of the room to wash the standing blood down a drain in the floor, pausing only to cough into the sleeve of his simple, white kimono. The hem was stained red with blood but it didn’t look like Aizen had hurt Gin, at least not lately.

Renji tore his eyes away from the mess in the corner, only to discover something worse on the other side of the room. He’d heard about things like this happening, Karin and Nemu had informed him repeatedly that it did, but this was the first time he’d ever witnessed it and he felt sick to his stomach.

Aizen was sitting in his throne, a dreamy, pleased smile on his lips as he brushed a hand through blood-matted, pink strands while the head attached to the hair bobbed between his legs. Renji hardly noticed the smile or Aizen at all, as he stared wide-eyed at the blood streaming down Szayel’s naked back and the white and red fluid staining his thighs. Dark, black-and-purple bruises formed on his rear, his back and his thighs and the whimpering he’d caught earlier came from the Espada, forced to take Aizen’s engorged length deep down his throat.

“Ah, Abarai, you have excellent timing. I am almost done here, but I fear your Master will be unable to walk home on his own.” The hand that had been stroking through Szayel’s bloodstained hair came down the side of Szayel’s face in a mockery of a comforting caress.

Renji was too horrified to speak, too shocked to breathe, and probably would have raced forward to separate them had not some tactically detached part of his brain intervened and told his body to stay where it was if he wanted to walk away unscathed. By the time he got himself together, Aizen let out a pleased sigh before brushing Szayel off his lap as if he was a speck of unwanted dirt.

Szayel fell to the floor with a whimper, gagging and curled up pathetically. Aizen rose to his feet, tucked himself away, fixed his hakama, and stepped over the quivering, bloody mess at his feet.

“Kindly escort your Master home,” Aizen smiled benignly at him before gazing down at the shivering body at his feet. “I trust you have learned your lesson?”

Szayel gave a nod of his head.

“Excellent. I will see you and your son tomorrow afternoon then. I can’t wait to see what kind of projects Abisara has been working on.”

With that, Aizen waltzed out of the room, leaving the door open behind him.

Renji quickly moved to Szayel’s side, his revulsion growing as he finally got a look at the damage done to the Espada’s front.

The two of them had reached a tentative truce over the years, but deep down Renji had still harboured some bitterness for the experiments, Szayel’s initial rape of his person when he’d first Claimed him, and the one terrible discovery, just three years ago that led to a failed attempt on his part to strangle the scientist. There were mitigating circumstances in each instance, but the resentment the redhead felt lingered, refusing to die on principle.

What little of the antipathy he still felt vanished as he surveyed the nightmarish mess Aizen had blithely made out of one of his own subordinates. In fact, it rolled over on its back and died a swift and certain death.

“Szayel,” he called hesitantly, not knowing where to start.

“Just take me home,” Szayel whispered weakly.

“Sure.”

Renji looked around for Szayel’s clothes, but all he found was a pile of bloody tatters over by a bed like structure that still gleamed wetly from a recent spraying-down. Lacking anything else, Renji shrugged out of the top part of his uniform instead and wrapped his kosode around the quivering Arrancar. The redhead was taller and broader-shouldered than Szayel and it might cover the worst of things.

He had no idea what to say, so he kept his mouth shut, even as he noticed the tears streaming down Szayel’s face and the cum staining his lips. Belatedly, he realized the shaking was due to Szayel’s broken sobbing. His front was just as damaged as his back and blood oozed from the red welts that wrapped around Szayel’s wrist and ankles. Those wounds, Renji knew, came from struggling against restraints. There was even some purple bruising starting to show up around the corners of Szayel’s mouth, which meant that Aizen had gagged him at some point.

“Ya should get ‘im home,” Gin spoke up weakly, then turned away. “Do it quick, ’fore Kami changes ‘is mind.”

“Yeah,” Renji agreed as he picked up his burden bridal style.

Szayel cried out softly in pain but there was nothing Renji could do about it. There didn’t seem to be a good way to carry him, as all of the best ways to carry an injured person, at least in Renji’s experience, would put undue pressure on Szayel’s wounded body. The best he could do was to get Szayel somewhere that could provide some treatment and fast.

He launched into shunpo the moment he was clear of the Palace Gates, ignoring how much blood had already seeped through the uniform top and smeared his tattooed chest and arms. He felt sick to his stomach and held back the urge to hurl only through sheer will power. Szayel was not so lucky, but at least he managed to warn Renji so he had time to set Szayel down and hold onto him while he vomited into a planting of bushes. The shaking intensified after that and Renji had to hold onto his burden more tightly as he continued the headlong rush to get Szayel home.

“What kind of crazy, fucked-up person punishes one person for beating their subordinate into a bloody pulp, and then turns around and does the same thing to one of his?” Renji couldn’t help but to mutter in disgust.

If Szayel heard him, he didn’t answer.

Then he thought about what he’d originally intended to do today and the same cold that filled his veins sank to the pit of his stomach. Abisara and Vindula… there was no way in hell he would let his charges see their father looking like this. Renji almost came to a stop as he considered the implications of rushing into the Science and Research Building, Szayel’s home, with his burden. He could imagine the horrified expressions both youngsters would have, seeing their Otou-san looking like something a bear had mauled and reeking of blood, fear, and sex.

He would never subject Vindula to that kind of thing again. Once was enough and he had been the one bearing most of the blood and wounds. He wouldn’t even take the chance.

Renji wasn’t all that great at sensing reiatsu, but he could often find the twins without too much trouble. Abisara was down in one of the invention research labs, a good distance away from the biological ones. Blessedly, Vindula was not there at all, most likely somewhere with Hana, Ajuga or Lilynette. Fortune was with him today, it would seem, even if the bitch had passed Szayel by completely.

He picked up the pace before either of the twins figured out he was back, rushing in through the front doors and towards one of the medical labs. The staff stared after him in surprise, but he paid them no mind other than to order the closest person in a lab coat to find Nemu and send her, by herself, to Laboratory 5, only to rectify that order when Szayel whimpered out ‘room.’

Renji didn’t question the decision and simply changed course to carry the Espada to the set of suites Szayel and his family used as their living quarters. Not that the one Renji had here was bad, but his small set of rooms was nowhere near this elegant. They were definitely better than the large, subterranean chamber he had temporarily lived in until the issue of his Claim had been addressed and far outweighed the little closet he’d apparently rested in during his ‘long sleep,’ as he referred to the time that had passed while his soul had been shattered.

“Bathroom,” the scientist muttered thickly.

Renji nodded and helped Szayel into the bathroom, setting him down on the shower floor before reaching up and turning the taps on. Water sprayed down on them but he didn’t mind. He needed a rinse as well with the blood coating his chest and staining his hakama.

With deliberate gentleness, he slowly striped his sodden, bloodstained kosode from Szayel’s shivering body. His patient remained limp in his arms as Renji set about cleaning the bloody mess up. The water running down the drain ran bright red for some time and the once white washcloth quickly took on the same shade as Renji’s hair.

Nemu arrived ten minutes later, a look of worry on her normally stoic face. She silently joined them and pulled Szayel’s head into her lap, where she proceeded, gently, to wash the blood out of his hair. Renji reached up above their heads and passed her the bottles of shampoo and conditioner when she softly asked for it.

No further words were exchanged between the three and the only noise was the hiss of the shower running and the occasional gurgle from the drain. Renji silently continued to clean up blood, scrubbing the cuts clean and holding back a foul oath when he noticed that Szayel’s back hadn’t been lashed with a whip as he’d first assumed, but rather carved up with a knife, or some other sharp implement. The wounds formed kanji. Szayel flinched periodically in pain and the odd whimper escaped his throat, but otherwise he made no protest. When most of Szayel was cleaned up, Renji finally found himself hesitating. The last part of Szayel’s body that needed tending to was rather private.

Most of the shivering had finally ceased and Renji finally broke the silence.

“Do you want to finish cleaning up on your own?” he asked softly.

“Yes, I think I can manage the rest from here. Could you go make some tea, the one in the red jar on the top shelf in the back?” Szayel requested. His voice wavered a bit, but otherwise it seemed strong enough. “It contains a painkiller.”

“No problem,” Renji agreed, handing him the cloth and soap before disentangling himself from the pile of bodies the three of them had somehow managed to end up in.

He shed what was left of his uniform and tossed it in the hamper before drying off and wrapping one towel around his sodden hair and another around his waist so he wasn’t walking around naked. He completely ignored the heart-wrenching sob that broke out almost immediately after he closed the bathroom door behind him. There were some things, he knew, one man didn’t want another man to hear.

He leaned against the door for a moment with his eyes closed as the broken sobbing continued. Then, suddenly furious, he pushed off and stalked to the kitchen. His hands shook in anger as he set about getting water boiling and finding the correct tin of tea leaves.

Words failed him. That any creature could do such a thing to another, that any _ruler_ could treat a subordinate in such a way… Renji simply didn’t understand what would prompt such a thing. He thought what he felt towards Aizen was the lowest form of loathing and hate a soul could muster, but he’d been terribly wrong about that. He spied a couple of bottles on the top shelf, kept well out of reach of curious children and pulled one down.

Renji forced the bile that lurked in the back of his throat down and poured a shot of sake to settle his nerves, then another. A third one beckoned, but he firmly put the bottle away before he could down the whole thing, as he wanted to.

He’d been pretty pissed when Szayel had Claimed him, but the Seventh Espada had never put Renji through anything like what Aizen had just done to the scientist. In fact, now that he’d calmed down over the years and considered things, he realized that Szayel hadn’t exactly enjoyed it overly much either. It had always been quick and clinical, often with Szayel muttering about finding another way to Claim him and going on about how he was lucky he made a half-decent specimen. There was also the deal the Espada had made with Ishida Uryuu, to keep he and Nemu alive, something he’d only learned of a little over five years ago.

Of course, the Szayel from before the ‘long sleep’ was infinitely different from the Szayel he’d encountered upon his restoration. They might as well not even be the same person, short of an unholy interest in all things scientific.

The water boiled, sending the kettle whistling and forcing Renji back to the task at hand. He set the tea to brewing and poured the rest of the water into a bowl with the cups to warm them. Digging through the fridge, he pulled out the hidden stash of fudge he knew Szayel kept from his children in a secret compartment in the back. Well, maybe from Vindula as Renji suspected Abisara would have easily found the hidden storage space and was unlikely to raid it, or at least, to gobble it all down in one setting.

He put the tray of tea, the warmed cups, and the candy together before entering the living room. Nemu and Szayel were just exiting the bathroom and Renji could see the bandages tightly wrapped around Szayel’s chest through the thick, fluffy, pink bathrobe he’d thrown on.

“You must think me pathetic,” Szayel muttered brokenly as Nemu forced him to sit down on his usual place on the end of the couch.

“No,” Renji assured him. “What I am thinking right now is how sick of a fuck Aizen is,” he growled, finally allowing his anger to show. “I thought Karin and Grimmjow were supposed to administer any punishments.”

“They are not here,” Szayel pointed out, his expression bleak.

“Oh right.” He’d forgotten that Aizen had sent them out the previous morning. “I thought Aizen wanted to wait a while before sending Karin further afield!”

“I suspect that he wanted them out of the way.” Szayel spat hatefully. Now Renji felt his jaw drop a little

“You mean to tell me that Aizen deliberately sent them out early just so he could…” Renji forced himself to stop before he could say it.

“Torture and rape me,” Szayel finished for him, his shoulders slumped and his golden eyes dull. “Yes. That is exactly what I suspect happened. Yammy pissed him off and torture always turns Aizen on. You would have to have strange tastes to want to willingly fornicate with that pig-headed lump and since Gin is sick with pneumonia, he made up some excuse to summon me…” Szayel trailed off, his body beginning to shake once more and tears threatening the corner of his eyes. “I had forgotten how much this hurts,” he whimpered, trying to adjust his body into a more comfortable position.

Nemu poured him a cup of tea and Szayel accepted it with trembling hands.

Once again, Renji had no idea what to say. He felt helpless and feeling helpless made him uncomfortable. He could not believe that Aizen had stooped so low as to change plans regarding the defence of the city just so he could get a little tail. The only tiny bit of consolation he could get out of the whole fucked up affair was that Yammy had been decisively punished for hurting Byakuya so badly.

Szayel’s shakes came and went and he suffered at least two panic attacks. Nemu simply held him, whispering small, soft endearments to him as she gently rocked him and Renji began to feel like an intruder. Then he looked down and realized he was still half-naked. He latched onto that, as it was the one thing he could do something about at the moment.

“I am going to get a change of clothes. If you give me that card thing, I’ll take Abisara and Vindula out for dinner,” he offered.

“That would be appreciated,” Nemu replied, her green eyes full of gratitude.

She untangled herself from Szayel and dug up the card. Renji drained the last of his tea and accepted it. He locked the door on his way out and made his way back to his own room, startling a few of the staff members as he passed them, barefoot and clad only in terry cloth.

Renji didn’t have the time to indulge in what he wanted to do, which was to open himself up to the Claim that surrounded him and spend the afternoon taking comfort in Nel’s reiatsu. Since he wasn’t sure what she could feel on her end, given the distance, he settled on a minute or two, sitting on the edge of the bed, to send as much reassurance and as much love to his mate as he could, to let her know that whatever she might have picked up in the short time he’d been in Aizen’s little chamber of horrors had only been temporary and that he remained in one piece. Then, reluctantly, he got to his feet.

He pulled on one of the spare uniforms he kept in his closet, found his spare sandals and retrieved Abisara first. The boy was the closest one, Renji grudgingly admitted, far better at sensing reiatsu, and finding his twin than Renji. It took a bit of prying, but Renji pulled the young boy away from his circuitry project and sic’d him on Vindula’s scent. The promise of taiyaki acted as the perfect incentive.

They found her hanging out with Lilynette and Ajuga in one of the many larger parks in the 1st District. Apparently, they were teaching Vindula how to hunt deer as the population in this particular park was getting too large and too many trees were dying as the deer stripped off their layers of bark and ate them. The things were a good choice of prey for the young girl. He hadn’t exactly figured Vindula for a hunter. Nevertheless, whatever the older girls seemed to be into, Vindula wanted to try. At least she wasn’t alone and a sitting duck for an unruly Numeros or an Espada with an eye for the naturally-born. Last year’s ruckus over her had left an impression on both children, but Vindula’s exuberance often won out over prudence. He hated it when the girl eluded him and swore he was going to wake up with grey streaks in his long red mane from worrying over her.

They immediately forgave him for interrupting their hunting lesson when he informed them he was taking them all out for dinner. An argument briefly ensued as they discussed food options before they settled on a favourite place that served its patrons raw food on platters that they could cook on a grill in the center of the table. Considering what he knew of Ajuga’s food preferences, barbecue seemed like a good compromise.

“Renji, is everything alright?” Ajuga asked him in a low voice as Lilynette skipped ahead with the twins, playing an impromptu game of tag that made Renji think of another small girl he’d once known and her two brothers, chasing one another through endless hills of white sand. He turned to stare down at the young hybrid, shaking his head to rid him of the image.

“Hmm, what makes you think something’s wrong?”

“You have Szay’s card and,” her voice lowered further so he had to strain to hear her, “you smell like Szay’s blood and it also smells like you just took a shower. Plus, you’re a rotten liar.”

He didn’t dare answer verbally, so he gave a very small nod of his head. Ajuga frowned, but she was smart enough to remember the twins were within earshot, so she didn’t press for more information. Renji was glad because, in his mind, _she_ was too young to be dealing with this shit, Arrancar child or not, nearly-grown or not.

Dinner went better than he expected. Ajuga let nothing slip that something was up and Abisara even unwound a little, finally acting like the little boy he really was. With some effort, Renji managed to place the horrifying event that had led to this pleasant evening into a corner of his mind that he told himself he’d deal with later, when he had more time and fewer responsibilities. After dinner, they even went to one of the parks with a playground.

He sat on the bench and watched, satisfied as the twins played in a carefree manner. Even Ajuga participated and the first small game of tag Lilynette started on the way to the restaurant quickly escalated as they raced around, under and over the playground equipment. Vindula was the one who ran up to him and grabbed his hand, tugging insistently and demanding he come play too. He resisted only as long as it took her to turn watery big eyes his way. He let out a mock sigh of defeat and rose from the bench to join in the game. She let out a squeal of delight and raced back to the rest of the fray. Briefly, her feet left the ground as she skipped and the next time it happened, he wings kept her airborne for a few more seconds. Renji stopped for a moment to stare.

Another milestone promptly slapped him in the face, even as he suddenly understood he was going to have to deal with this new, aerial aspect of his small, female charge. Renji prayed, as he watched Vindula flutter back to the game that the shocks were done for the day.

The sun was just starting to set when he ushered all of them back towards home, pausing only to grab some taiyaki for them as a treat and to pay Abisara back for locating his twin.

Ajuga and Lilinette peeled off as they passed the tree-lined street that would take them back to Jushiro’s Estate. Ajuga paused and shared a sad look with him before continuing on. He hoped that Nemu had been able to tend properly to Szayel and that Szayel had a chance to recover, or at least, recover enough that he would be able to put on a false front for his children.

There was something nagging at the back of his mind and unfortunately, it wasn’t until the children had been settled into bed and he’d returned to his own room that it hit him. Renji had to sift back through the nauseating details, but he thought he’d heard Aizen say something that he hoped he’d heard wrong. When the bastard’s precise words came back to him in a rush, he was on his feet, stalking purposefully towards the Division’s Library, to search yet again for any book that he thought might tell him how to open the portal Nel used to enter the small, Kido-created room where she refreshed his Claim every ten months. He’d been at this for the last five years but now…

_“_ _Excellent. I will see you and your son tomorrow afternoon then. I can_ _’_ _t wait to see what kind of projects Abisara has been working on._ _”_

Today he’d seen the result of Aizen’s tender ‘attentions’ towards Szayel. Renji would be boiled in oil, flayed alive and tossed through the Hell Gate naked before he would allow Aizen to show the same kind of ‘attention’ towards Abisara. Szayel had been punished for something and that little bit the snake-in-Kami’s-clothing mentioned before leaving told Renji that whatever it was involved his son. If Szayel’s paternal instincts were telling him to keep Aizen away from the boy at all costs, Renji wasn’t going to argue.

The redhead’s pace down the hallway picked up. He’d been over and over the Library, looking for any information on higher levels of Kido, and barriers in particular… anything to figure out how to crack the one last obstacle in his path. However, Kido wasn’t his strongest suit and he couldn’t risk asking anyone for help. Worst of all, what Renji feared most was that he might be rapidly running out of time.


	13. Scarab

Karin took a deep breath before exhaling slowly. Two weeks of nonstop searching and she had been unable to catch a glimpse of the portals. She had caught sight of the Swarm coming her way thanks to their sheer numbers. Ten thousand tiny lights clustered together were much easier to spot than the same number spread out. They determined that the portals were opening far out of range of her sight. That was the rationale behind this mission, one she could not refuse as Aizen had been the one to assign it, although she did wonder why he had sent them out sooner than expected.

As planned, they were two day’s travel out of Seireitei, and by two days that meant two days as an Espada could travel using Sonido. She had tried to keep up but her Shunpo was simply not that fast, being average at best. In the end, Grimmjow carried her, although she swore he only did it so he had the excuse to grope her while on the move.

Aizen’s quartermaster had supplied them with a single tent, three bedrolls, food and water. That was apparently all they were going to need. Wood was easy to find out here and fire was a simple Kido spell away. Food wasn’t all that hard to find either and after their first meal of semi-spoiled field rations, Grimmjow tossed the whole lot out and hunted up some wild meat instead. Karin didn’t find the rations that bad, but she had to admit that fresh meat was far better.

One nice thing about having just one tent was that it meant her mate had to behave at night. Their shared quarters were too cramped for shenanigans. Even his libido was banked since they could barely move without nudging into Starrk. The small tent was annoying space-wise, but convenient from the point of retaining body heat. It was winter and this far north, they encountered patches of snow on the ground and their breath hung frozen in the air when they spoke. The small space meant that the tent warmed up quickly and stayed that way. Grimmjow may have grumbled about it a bit, but Karin, quite frankly, preferred to be in the middle where she could huddle between the two men and surround herself with their warmth. Thus, she told her mate to stuff it. It wasn’t like Starrk was going to try something with her even if they had been alone.

Now here she sat, meditating on a rock and soaking up what heat she could from the weak, winter sun while trying to find any hint of Swarm activity. Grimmjow was off somewhere to her left, moving slowly when he moved at all so she guessed he was hunting and had a potential meal in sight. This mission was testing her mate’s patience as there was nothing for him to do but guard her until they managed to subdue one of the Scarabs. Then he would have to help Starrk carry it back.

Starrk, for his part, was content to doze a few feet away from her and wait for the signal that she had spotted a target, at which point he would go after it. They weren’t entirely sure if he would carry her or not as it all depended on how well she could inform him of the location. Unlike her, he could not track the Swarm’s reiatsu, it was simply too small and blended too well into the surrounding natural energy of the forest. It would be like trying to find the one common goldfish in a school full of koi. A very hard thing to do when they all kept moving.

Her world started to both fade and come into focus. She cast her vision forward and tried to ignore the sun that was sitting right beside her and the moon that was slowly stalking to her side. Unfortunately, she couldn’t wear the shades Szayel had crafted for her to tone down the more powerful reiatsu of people like Starrk because they completely negated what little reiatsu the Swarm had. She was on her fifth pair now as Szayel kept finding way of improving them. The current incarnation had a pink lens, purple and white frames and she couldn’t help but to smile when he had presented them to her.

Evening was fast approaching when an uneasy feeling came over her. It was faint, but there was definitely something wrong, she just couldn’t put her finger on it. A second later, she saw it, a maelstrom of reiatsu that she had only seen once before.

“Starrk!” she called, jumping to her feet and turning to face the portal.

Starrk was instantly awake and before she knew it, they were moving with her cradled in his arms. They didn’t stay that way for long as she shifted to his back so his hands were free and she could leap off him quickly if need be. It could not be easy fighting with someone latched onto your back.

She didn’t dare speak for fear the Swarm would pick it up, although, at the speed they were traveling words would have been lost on the wind anyway. Instead, she directed him by pointing where she saw the portal opening. They were coming at it at a bit of an angle, which was good. If they tried to come at it head-on, they would have run straight into the Swarm‘s invasion force. She could hear the buzzing sound of the Locusts’ wings as they got closer and tapped Starrk’s shoulder to get him to slow down when she saw they were near.

She slid from his back and the two of them approached their target stealthily. Since the Swarm had no reason to suspect that there were scouts this far out, and since most of them could fly, not a single one of them checked the undergrowth for intruders. The coniferous forest had a thick canopy and the only reason they even knew the Swarm was so close was because Karin could see the faintly glimmering stream of reiatsu and because they could hear them. This didn’t mean they strolled leisurely through the forest; all it would take was one Locust spotting them through a break in the treetops to make their lives miserable and this mission would have to be scrapped. Karin didn’t fear that they would kill her. One taste of her blood would let them know who and what she was. No, she feared what they would do to her should they capture her.

While she doubted the Swarm could directly hurt either Starrk or Grimmjow as their Hierro was very strong, the sheer numbers would eventually weigh them down and tire them out. So far, no one had been safe from the acid of the giant beetles and if it could eat through a good chunk of Ulquiorra, even with his high speed regeneration matched by none of the other Espada, than it could eat through both Starrk and Grimmjow’s natural protections. The mental image was not a pretty one and she forced the fear away to focus on what she had to do to remain undetected.

They finally reached a clearing and both of them fell to their bellies. In front of them six Scarabs stood in three sets of two, wings touching and portals gleaming between them. Recalling Ulquiorra’s report about how disrupting the portal had caused them to explode, and needing their prey alive, Starrk and Karin waited. Two portals had Locusts coming through while the last one seemed to be a gateway for the giant beetles. Karin tried to get a glimpse of the other side, but the portals remained nothing more than shimmering colors.

If she hadn’t had her sight, she might have jumped when she felt Grimmjow place his hand on her shoulder for she hadn’t heard him approach. Starrk must have sensed his arrival for he hardly seemed surprised either.

 _Must have felt my excitement and guessed what was going on,_ she mused.

After half an hour, the portals began to waver. A moment later they ceased spewing forth the latest wave of the Swarm and the Scarabs slowly mantled their shimmering wings. The last Locust and the beetles didn’t even look back and after another two minutes, the sound of buzzing faded off into the distance.

The scarabs seemed exhausted and moved sluggishly as they turned about and retreated, although it seemed more like a waddle. Now was their chance. Arrancar were predators, through and through, thus there was no need for Starrk and Grimmjow to communicate to each other which one they planned on capturing. Instinctively, they determined which one seemed weakest and, thus, would be the easiest to subdue.

They struck so quickly that three of the Scarabs were dead before the other three even realized they were under attack. Karin didn’t know if the Scarabs had much in the way of combat strength, but it was clear they were exhausted and the fight ended quickly. Starrk and Grimmjow wrapped up the last one left alive in the thin cable that Szayel had provided for this purpose. It looked fragile but it was surprisingly strong and Karin briefly wondered what in the hell it was made from.

The Scarab they had subdued kicked up quite the racket and seemed to be speaking, but Karin didn’t recognize or understand any of it. That indicated that it was at least semi-intelligent, which made sense given the skill it required to create and maintain a portal.

“Knock it off, before I turn you into worm food,” Grimmjow snarled at the large thing.

His threat went unheeded, either because the bug ignored him or because the creature couldn’t understand him. The Scarab did cease its struggles immediately when she walked out from under the cover of her hiding spot. There was no doubt that it recognized her. Karin suddenly hoped that Szayel was right about their ‘hive-mind communication’ having limited range because if it didn’t, the invasion force they had just seen cross over might just be heading back their way. There was definitely no doubt about the creatures’ intelligence now. The regular Locusts never showed any signs of recognition during a battle unless they got a taste of her blood, but this creature clearly knew her. It added weight to Szayel’s theory about some sort of telepathic link because she doubted a simple description would have worked. A mental image shared amongst the members of an invading team… now that made more sense.

It started speaking again, this time one word, or at least Karin thought it was a single word. It could have been a dozen for all she knew. The sound was repeated over and over and the creature seemed excited. Karin was suddenly very glad that the Scarab didn’t speak their language. She really wanted to say she trusted Starrk, but she still wasn’t sure what he would do with the knowledge of her heritage. If the stability of the realms went too far off-balance, he just might betray her secret to Aizen. She wasn’t going to count on her ‘shit-storm level’ matching his. She knew that she would give herself up if things really started going down the tubes, as she truly didn’t want to see the Realms unravel. However, until such a thing came to pass she was not going to stick her neck out for Aizen to cut off her head by sitting on the throne, nor would she spread her legs so he could attempt to breed that heir he wanted.

Besides, if Royal blood ran through her family’s veins, why couldn’t they convince Ichigo to do it? He was far stronger than she was and, according to Grimmjow, on the very rare occasion her brother came up in conversations, easily as strong as Starrk if not stronger. If anyone stood a chance of sitting on the throne and staying alive to hold it and bring things back into balance, it was Ichigo. So why wasn’t the Swarm chasing after her older brother?

 _Unless they are and can_ _‘_ _t corner him. Hell, they can_ _‘_ _t even corner me,_ she thought. _Maybe he doesn_ _’_ _t know about the whole Realm destabilization thing. No, that can_ _’_ _t be right. Yoruichi mentioned it and I know she_ _’_ _s with him. He probably said no for the same reason I did._

The only way for Aizen to break back into the Royal Palace, should a true heir decide they wanted to claim the throne, would be to massacre the innocent inhabitants of another city like Karakura. No one in her family would bring about such a thing unless there was absolutely no other choice.

Karin turned her attention back to the excitedly chittering Scarab. It seemed almost beside itself with unmitigated excitement and tried to squirm closer to her.

“Something this big is going to take a lot of work to get back,” she sighed.

“I ain’t carrying it,” Grimmjow snorted.

The three of them stared at the creature as it continued to make its strange noises and struggle.

“I have an idea,” Starrk said out loud and the other two leaned in to listen.

“This is the stupidest thing I have participated in,” Karin complained, although most of her words were lost to the wind.

Once more she was hanging off of someone’s back, right now that someone being Grimmjow. Behind them, the Scarab flew after them with Starrk riding its back like some kind of driver. They had adjusted the cables to make a sort of harness and had rigged it so that a tight pull would tug all their prisoners’ legs and wings in, effectively immobilizing it.

The creature almost seemed to have a childlike eagerness as it chased after her, still chattering and clicking away.

“The bait ain’t got room to complain. You are not even running on your own” Grimmjow taunted.

“Someone is going to be sleeping on the patio for the next month if they refer to me as ‘bait’ again,” Karin growled dangerously. “Or should I have Szayel remove your smaller sword,” she threatened.

“Hay Starrk, I think it’s your turn, the bait’s getting testy,” Grimmjow called up.

“You still got plenty of energy,” Starrk replied sleepily.

“Do I look like bait?” she demanded as she slapped him over the back of the head.

“Yes, but this time it didn’t take five years for the prey to bite” he smirked back at her over his shoulder.

She stared at him confused for a moment before the old memory came back to her of a young girl staring challengingly up at a much taller man looking down upon her. She’d been afraid, terrified really, but she’d forced her back straight and looked him dead in the eye. He’d laughed at her challenge and had ushered her and her sister out without harming a hair on either of their heads. For the longest time it had been an exasperating, and sometimes even painful memory, but now she couldn’t help but to smile fondly at it. The first time she had met her mate.

They continued to travel like this all the way back to the city. Karin would run on her own for a few hours and be carried by either Grimmjow or Starrk the rest of the way. Whichever Espada was resting would ride the Scarab while she would catch catnaps while being carried. They were moving fast and as such, they had veered west for a while just to make sure they didn’t accidentally come up behind the army ahead of them. With an intelligent member of the Swarm traveling with them, they didn’t dare risk it sending a message about their location. It would not be a good thing for an entire army to know she was here.

It took them almost five days to get back. Their prisoner, although by the end of the second day they were starting to think of it more as a pet, kept up a steady pace the entire way. Starrk and Grimmjow seemed more or less fine, but Karin was starting to suffer from sleep deprivation. The catnaps were simply not enough to keep her energy up. Since Grimmjow had tossed all the rations away the first day out, all she had managed to get down were a few cupped handfuls of water from the canteen. It had also been almost two weeks since her last bath. She was dirty, she was starving, she was tired, she was cranky and in a bad mood. It was a great relief to see the city come up before them and to not see the flashes of battle. Karin guessed the Swarm had probably arrived yesterday afternoon and had been subsequently put down by the defenders.

“Do you think you can run on your own for a bit while I go off ahead to warn them we are coming?” Starrk questioned.

“Yeah, I should be fine for maybe half an hour,” she answered unhappily.

Starrk put on a small burst of speed to bring them further ahead so she would have time to get off his back and find her footing in the air before the Scarab caught up. They had been running in the air to avoid having to deal with the varied terrain below, but once they hit the white wall surrounding the central part of the city they would no longer be able to take that kind of shortcut.

Karin found her balance and she kept going while Starrk disappeared. It was almost as if he had teleported away instead of using Sonido. He returned after about ten minutes, just as she was hitting the outer edge of the city’s suburbs.

Shinigami and several Arrancar joined them and an escort formed. Starrk replaced Grimmjow on the Scarab and she found herself once more riding her Mate’s back. The gate was open when they arrived at the wall and they led the Scarab through it. Once on the other side Starrk pulled on the reins tethered to the wings, forcing them closed and the Scarab to walk. Karin swore that most of the Shinigami and Arrancar were lined up between the gate and the Science and Research building. Cheers arose from quite a few of them and several Arrancar grabbed hold of the cables as Starrk tossed the reigns to them.

Szayel met them at the main entranceway to the compound, a look of excitement covering his face, but Karin, even in her exhausted state, noted that she wasn’t getting _that_ much excitement from the Claim. Oh, he was excited, but he should have been practically bouncing in glee at the presentation of a live specimen. Instead, he was standing almost stiffly and she caught sight of what looked like bandages wrapped around his chest when the wind moved the fabric a certain way.

Grimmjow set her down and took over one of the guiding ropes. Karin walked up to Szayel, a frown on her features as she approached him.

“Karin-sama,” he greeted her pleasantly, most of his attention still on the Scarab.

“First, food. I haven’t had anything to eat in damn near a week.”

One of Szayel’s subordinates standing nearby quickly ran off, presumably to get her something to eat. She watched as Renji, and then Nemu, took a cable and Starrk finally jumped down holding a cable of his own. The Scarab was still trying to get to her, but its progress was now halted with the powerful people holding the controlling leads.

“Bring it around to the back elevator,” Szayel called out.

“Which is where?” Karin questioned before adding far more quietly, “…the damn thing is following me!”

Szayel looked at her and Karin saw understanding dawning in his eyes. This was one moment that she was glad for his intelligence for there was no need to elaborate. He spun on his heal and led her on a wide route around the glass dome to a warehouse in the back. The doors swung open to reveal what, at first, appeared to be an empty building, but afterwards proved to be the housing for a giant elevator.

Sensing the sensitivity of the situation, Szayel dismissed the others until only Starrk, Grimmjow, Nemu and Renji were left to keep the thing under control. Through the whole process, it chittered excitedly, but wasn’t straining as much as the elevator descended and Karin was forced to stand only a few feet away.

“What peculiar behaviour,” Szayel noted curiously. “How long has it been acting like this?”

“Since it first caught sight of me,” Karin answered. “…and speaking of peculiar behaviour…” The young woman reached over and pulled the material of his jacket away from his back. Szayel flinched but didn’t try to pull away from her.

“What happened?” she demanded.

“Aizen was feeling nostalgic while you were away,” Szayel answered, his voice cracking only slightly at the end.

“Did that fucker touch you again?” Grimmjow demanded in a growl before Karin could say anything.

Szayel nodded his head before explaining his theory about their sudden send off, his voice only wavering a few times in the telling. Karin hadn’t known about Byakuya and her rage at Yammy was hardly dampened by learning that Aizen had finally punished the brute for his malicious attack. She felt sick to her stomach to learn their entire mission had merely been so Aizen could have an excuse to play with one of his favourite toys for a few days.

“At least the mission was a success,” Szayel commented wearily as the elevator finally came to a halt.

“Yeah,” she agreed, with no enthusiasm whatsoever in her voice.

She was just too damn tired and hungry to let things affect her right now. Later, she could rampage all she wanted, but right now all she wanted was food, a shower, and bed. They manoeuvred the creature into a large holding chamber before Karin exited first. The large insect seemed upset over her absence, but it didn’t go insane or try to throw itself against the walls. The four handlers untangled to cables and the Scarab gave itself a good shake and started fastidiously grooming itself with its legs. It made no attempt to attack the four retreating figures as they left through a human-sized door.

Food arrived and Karin all but devoured the plate. She had to force herself to eat slowly and not too much, lest she pay for it later with a stomach ache. While she doubted she had been starved long enough that eating a full meal would have any effect on her health, she wasn’t going to chance getting sick. Oh yes, she and her Mate were going to have words about tossing the rations aside after she finally had that shower and nap.

“You’ve done an excellent job I knew you would be successful.”

Karin’s temper snapped before she even had a chance to register that Aizen had joined them. Sleep deprivation, starvation and exhaustion had demolished the control she normally had over her emotions and verbal filters.

“Fuck that!” she spat. “How dare you harm my property!”

Aizen actually looked surprised while shock and horror covered the faces of the other five present. She was always cautious around Aizen, she had to be. The fact she was openly snarling at someone who could kill her with a wave of his hand stunned the rest. What stunned them more was that she didn’t stop.

“What the fuck could Szayel have possibly done while I was gone that would garner your personal interest, and don’t give me some fucking little excuse, like he wasn’t being respectful enough. You are damn lucky that the backwash down the Claim didn’t hit while we were engaged in combat!”

“Karin,” Starrk said firmly, gray eyes giving her a warning look.

She shot him a glare, but clamped her mouth shut before she gave too much away, like the fact that she was the one holding Szayel’s Claim, not Grimmjow.

“That was rather disrespectful of you,” Aizen frowned down at her.

Several sharp retorts rose to her mind, but for once it was Grimmjow silencing her. He didn’t do it via a sharp elbow or a stomp on the foot though. Instead, he pulled her into his grasp.

“She’s tired and hungry, and that’s my fault,” Grimmjow spoke up. “Those rations sucked, so I tossed them and decided to hunt instead. Should have realized we wouldn’t have time to hunt hauling this thing back,” he indicated the Scarab that was apparently finally resting.

“It has been six days since we captured it and we haven’t stopped once since then,” Starrk added.

“Plus, you know how possessive Karin is over her property,” Grimmjow added with a smirk Szayel’s way, vainly trying to lighten the suddenly dark atmosphere.

“Humph,” Szayel sniffed, turning away.

“Indeed. So you attribute the loss of her control to hunger, a state you confess to being responsible for?” Aizen questioned with a glint in his eye.

“Yes,” Grimmjow answered, clamping his hand over her mouth before she could protest.

Karin squirmed in his grasp, fear rushing through her. Aizen hadn’t punished either of them directly yet, at least not since she’d started her relationship with him, but she had a feeling that lucky streak was about to end.

“Grimmjow, I thought you had learned your lesson when Tousen removed your arm. Must we do such a thing again?” Aizen sighed.

Karin went completely rigid and she could feel her mate do the same. She had never heard about that incident and the thought that Aizen could do something like that sickened her, although it shouldn’t have surprised her. He did try to blind Jushiro, what was a missing limb or two?

“Even if he hadn’t tossed the rations, there would not have been time to eat,” Starrk spoke up, surprisingly coming to their defence. “The damn thing didn’t stop struggling the whole way,” he grumbled irritably.

“One can eat on the move,” Aizen waved the poor defence aside.

Karin was getting very tired of the hand covering her mouth, the fact it reeked like cable and dirt didn’t help any.

“You have been getting far too disrespectful lately Grimmjow. Perhaps you are long overdue for a lesson in manners.”

Karin started to squirm against him again, terror rushing through her. She had seen the kind of violence Aizen dished out. She’d had to put Szayel back together enough times to have a basic understanding of Aizen’s ability to be cruel and creative. Would Aizen go so far as to rape her mate as well? She desperately hoped not.

“You are all tired, and you have done a good job. You are dismissed for now.” Aizen waved them away.

Karin felt relief flood through her, both because Aizen seemed to have forgiven her outburst and because Grimmjow finally removed his hand from her mouth. They were almost completely out the door when Aizen spoke again.

“Grimmjow, do come see me tomorrow morning. I would like to speak to you about a few things.”

“Yeah, sure,” he grunted before forcing her to keep walking before she could protest and possible get one, or both, of them into deeper shit.

Once they were outside, he picked her up and burst into Sonido, getting them back to the Estate quickly. The world stopped spinning once they’d reached their bathroom and she simply stood there in stunned horror while he got the shower running and undressed them both.

“What have I done?” she demanded in a horrified whisper.

“Nothing,” he grunted, picking her up by the hips and depositing her under the hot water.

“Don’t give me that!” she sobbed. “What if he does something to you, like what he does to Szayel?” she demanded. “Or to me? Or to both of us?”

“Then he does it,” he answered casually.

“All of this is my fault,” she cried, tears welling up in her eyes.

Grimmjow grabbed her by the shoulders, spun her around, moved one hand up to grasp her chin, and raised her face so they were looking eye to eye.

“This. Is. Not. _Your_. Fault.”

He articulated each word. “If I hadn’t tossed that food away you would not be hungry and exhausted from energy depletion and would not have snapped like that. I have been stepping on Aizen’s toes since long before I even met your brother, let alone you. If you hadn’t been there over the years keeping me in line I would have been under his whip a lot sooner than this.”

He released her chin and pulled her flush against him, pulling her head to rest on his shoulder while the water continued to run down their bodies.

“Regardless of what he may or may not do to me tomorrow, at least it will be done to me, and not you,” he whispered softly. “He’ll probably just give me a stern lashing like he usually did before I met you and had a reason to behave.”

She sobbed against his chest, cursing herself for being so pathetic but unable to stop it. They stood like that for some time before Grimmjow gently pushed her away enough that he could reach the sponge and give them both a quick wipe down before turning the shower off.

He even dried them both off before carrying her to their bedroom and setting her into bed. Then he simply held her until the exhaustion and emotional trauma finally pulled her into a troubled slumber.

Ajuga poked her nose in around dinner time. Father and daughter shared a brief, whispered conversation over what Ajuga had been up to while they were gone so as to avoid waking Karin up. Grimmjow was pleased that Karin, despite her obvious troubled sleep, at least slept right through until the sun was rising in the morning.

He really didn’t want to slip out on her, but she needed her rest and it would be much better if she slept through any potential back lashes from their Mating Claim. He got dressed and left with all the stealth a trained predator like him had at his disposal. He was good, but Starrk still met him by the gate. They didn’t exchange words. If the shit hit the fan, Starrk would keep an eye on his family. That was more than Grimmjow could have ever asked for from a fellow Hollow.

It was a bright sunny morning as he walked lazily towards Aizen’s Palace. He did his best to keep his emotions numb, telling himself that this was no different from the dozens of other times he’d gotten his hands slapped when Aizen got annoyed with his disrespectful behaviour. Although, now that he thought about, he hadn’t gotten his hands slapped since taken it up with Karin. She was good at keeping him out of trouble.

 _Damn girl_ _’_ _s made a lap cat out of me,_ he grumbled to himself fondly.

The guards at the gates didn’t even spare him a glance, but there was someone waiting for him on the inside. He was not escorted to the basement as he’d been expecting, nor was he led to Aizen’s throne room either. Instead, he was led into a dining room where Aizen was apparently eating breakfast with his wife. Judging by the amount of food on their plates, they had just sat down. She seemed surprised to see him so he had a feeling that he wasn’t expected, at least not this early in the morning anyway.

“Ah Grimmjow, please, sit down,” Aizen indicated the empty chair to his left.

Hands in his pocket, he plunked down in the chair in as casual a manner as possible. He still had his pride and there was no way he was letting Aizen know just how unsettled he was. He had a reputation to maintain.

“I wasn’t expecting you this early. Would you like something to eat?” Aizen questioned pleasantly.

“Sure,” he shrugged nonchalantly.

Might as well enjoy what could be his last meal, although he doubted Aizen would kill him. He suspected that Aizen truly hadn’t been expected him to be here this early to face his admonishment. If he had been expected, then there would have been a place set for him at the table already. That was just how Aizen was. Servants brought out utensils, a cup of tea, and a plate full of food. He picked up the fork and began to eat, shovelling the food into his mouth.

“I trust you managed to feed your pet and get her to sleep?” Aizen questioned.

“Yeah,” he answered between mouthfuls of food. He took a deep breath and ground out the words he had thought he would sooner die than utter to the bastard sitting beside him. “I apologize for her behaviour, Kami-sama. I should have kept her under better control in your presence and should have seen to her well-being sooner.” He almost choked over the words, but he managed to get them out without it sounding too forced.

Aizen raise an eyebrow at him and set down his cup of tea.

“My, my, is that a real apology from you, without me needing to pull it from your teeth? Your pet has worked marvellous changes on your temperament, Grimmjow. I never thought the day would come that I would see humility from you.”

“Che,” he scoffed, taking another huge bite of food and doing what little he could to retain what was left of his bad-ass image.

Aizen turned his attention back to his wife and Grimmjow tuned the conversation out as they finished breakfast. Servants cleared the table while Aizen bid his wife a good day before she left for work. Aizen stood shortly after she left and sent him a smile.

He did his level best to keep the bored attitude, at least outwardly. He even leaned back on his chair, balancing on two legs and rocking back and forth slightly. He didn’t know how well he was hiding his apprehension, which had skyrocketed once Unohana left. He was positive Aizen had never tortured anyone in front of his wife, but now that she was gone, it was open season.

“While we are sitting here, you might as well report on how the mission went,” Aizen picked up his refilled tea cup and looked at him expectantly.

Shrugging, he filed Aizen in on everything that had happened, including how they all spent six days of nonstop running to get back to the city with their cargo. He wasn’t sure, but it seemed like Aizen was at least impressed with Karin’s endurance. No human should have been able to keep going for six days at the pace Grimmjow and Starrk set, especially on nothing more than mouthfuls of water. Unlike a spiritual being, Karin could not get nutrition from the very air like every other person in Soul Society could, with the exception of Orihime and Tatsuki.

“Why did you simply not leave her to catch up?” Aizen questioned.

“The damn thing targeted her first and since it was fixated on getting to her, and because she doesn’t have the strength to control the thing, we figured it would be more efficient to just keep its attention on her and dangle her as bait in front of it while Starrk and I directed its movements. It was Starrk’s idea. We got back quicker because of it and didn’t have to drag the thing every step of the way.”

“It did, indeed, work,” Aizen mused. “Still, I do not like chaos in my empire. You know how much disrespect annoys me.”

He felt his body stiffen before forcing it to relax. He didn’t want to wake Karin or cause her any unnecessary stress if he could avoid it. He would do anything to protect her and their daughter from Aizen’s gaze. The grin Aizen sent him made him shiver, but when the expected order to follow him downstairs came he still rose to his feet, shoved his hands in his pockets, and followed after Aizen as lazily as he could, as if the fact he was going down to Aizen’s playroom didn’t frighten the living shit out of him. Whatever punishment Aizen decided to lay down, he would go into it with head held high and eyes wide open.

_Hopefully, it won_ _’_ _t involve the removal of any of my limbs because that seriously sucked the last time._

Karin woke up when she heard the door clack open. It looked to be late afternoon and her bed was empty. She heard a familiar grunt, indicating it had been Grimmjow who had slammed the door open. She stretched and yawned before pulling herself out of bed. She was feeling a bit better now after her twenty hour long nap. Pulling a yukata on she walked out of the bedroom with a small smile, one that instantly disappeared when she saw the small trail of blood.

“Hey,” he greeted her with a grunt.

It was a sad thing that her first thought was ‘at least the damage isn’t actually that bad’ instead of ‘how dare the fucker hurt her mate and is he okay?’ She didn’t ask what had happened, as it was fairly obvious.

“Lay down so I can take a look at those,” she ordered firmly.

“They don’t hurt that much,” he shrugged.

“Amuse me,” she said crisply.

With a sigh, he made his way to the porch and lay down on his chest, resting his head on crossed arms. Karin arrived shortly after, a large bowl that steamed in the cool, winter air and several wash clothes. He hissed when the first dab of diluted alcohol touched the deep laceration in his back. She counted twenty lashes, and they were rather deep, but other than that, he appeared to have no further injuries. It could have been so much worse. Others had suffered more for less. Pointedly, Szayel, whom Aizen liked to torture and rape for the sick fun of it.

“It should have been me,” she whispered, berating herself. “I was the one who couldn’t keep her mouth shut. I know better.”

“Quiet!” he snapped. “Don’t even go there.”

“This was my fault,” she pressed.

“Fuck it, it was mine. You wouldn’t have snapped if you’d had food. Besides…” he paused for a moment, “I would be a pretty shitty mate if I let you or Ajuga come to harm.”

“Yeah, well, right back at you,” she smiled down at him. “Now hold still.”

He let out a hiss as she dabbed once more at the lacerations in his back.

“Baby,” she said warmly.

He let out a grunt of annoyance, but otherwise remained still as she tended to the wounds. His fast regeneration would take care of them quickly, but she still felt responsible for them and it made her feel slightly better to tend to them.

“I’ve received worse,” he finally spoke up. “This is just supposed to be a reminder, a slap on the wrists.”

She didn’t comment, but she did recall that Jushiro had come home on occasion over the years with similar stripes on his back for speaking up during meetings. It disgusted her, but to Aizen and his Arrancar it was the equivalent of spanking an unruly child, and she’d given a good number of those over the years. Not all of them ended up on Ajuga’s rear either and the memory of a pink-haired teenager squirming in her lap brought a chuckle to her.

“What’s got you so amused?” Grimmjow demanded.

“Sorry, just thinking about spankings.”

He looked at her strangely, blue eyes meeting hers over his shoulder.

“Women,” he grunted, before giving his head a shake and resting it on his hands once more.

“At least Aizen didn’t ask me to publicly spank you,” she pointed out, and for good measure brought her hand down sharply on his own rear, earning a surprised yelp out of him.


	14. Romp

Her toes curled in pleasure as the sandy-haired head continued to bob between her legs. Guilt certainly brought out an interesting side to her husband, but she wasn’t going to complain. She never asked for this form of attention from him, but she sure as hell wouldn’t say no when he offered it to her.

She could feel the edge looming before her. Her hands curled into his hair and she pulled gently, not wanting to go over that ledge just yet. She only managed to remove his tongue from her core because he let her.

A single sepia-coloured eye looked into desire-glazed ones. She swore that single eye glittered with mischief before dropping as Tesra began to level kisses along her inner thigh. He continued to shower her with kisses, slowly working his way up to her hip bones. He kissed his way along the edge of her pelvis until the bone began to curve away and disappear. He moved his lips up over her flat, toned stomach, pausing to dip his tongue into her belly button. She giggled as it tickled a bit and she could feel his lips smirk against her skin before they continued their journey up her body. From there they traveled along to one, small breast, kisses briefly turning into sucking as he assaulted her nipple. He paid the other one the same attention before gently kissing his way up to her throat, and finally her mouth. Their lips and tongues danced around each other and she felt him settle between her legs, his thick shaft already leaking precum and rubbing against her moist core.

Tatsuki shifted her leg and brought them up to wrap around his waist, pulling her to him and grinding against the hot, throbbing flesh pinned between their bellies. He let out a load moan as the resulting friction tormented him.

“I told you, I am perfectly fine,” she growled into his mouth.

“I still hurt you,” he murmured.

“It was an accident, but if you feel like you need to act like such a woman…” she twisted her powerful hips around and rolled them over so she pinned him to the futon now, “…then I will just have to wear the figurative pants,” she smirked down at him.

He wasn’t in any way a womanizer, nor did he think her weak simply because she had a pussy instead of a penis. There were simply no other terms she could think of to convey what she meant. Some things had just become a part of cultural reference, even if the meaning behind them had changed over time.

She didn’t dwell on those thoughts long. Right now, the only thing that mattered was sending as much love and pleasure as she could through the Claim his way. She was flattered he was worried about her and that he was upset that he had inadvertently hurt her, but it was getting tedious now. The only way to get him over it was to prove to him that she was fine about the accident. Moreover, there was one way she knew how to show it to him.

She grasped his leaking length and shifted so the tip was at her entrance. She slowly lowered herself upon him, not because it was uncomfortable, but because it was torturous for him as her wet, tight, heat slowly enveloped him. He squirmed beneath her and his hands dug into her hips. She stopped when he was only halfway in, smirking down at him as he looked up at her with a hint of sexual desperation.

Chuckling, she finally finished taking him in and sighed as her inner walls stretched fully to accommodate his length. She shifted about, adjusting her legs and hips into a comfortable position. His hands gently massaged her hips and his eye gazed up at her with what she could only call adoration. Settled comfortably, she leaned down and caught his lips with her own. They shared a deep kiss before she pulled back. Resting her hands on his chest for balance, she started to lift her hips up until just his tip was still inside of her, before going back down, slowly.

His head tipped back and he let out a low moan of pleasure. She rubbed her hands over his nipples, tweaking them while she kept up a slow and steady pace as she moved her body up and down his shaft. When his eye slid close in bliss and he started to thrust up to meet her was when she struck.

She had never seen him without the eye patch on before. She had asked him if she could see before, but he always just got embarrassed and said maybe another time. Well so help her that ‘other time’ was going to be this time. She had it off before he even realized she’d moved. He froze beneath her; both eyes wide open with shock. She, on the other hand, kept moving and even gave him a squeeze with her inner muscles, which made him shiver.

With the hand that had removed the eye patch, she cupped the side of his face and smiled down at him. One of his eyes looked up at her apprehensively, while the other was a milky white.

“Fascinating,” she murmured, brushing her thumb across his cheek. “I think I like the contrast,” she mused. “You should take it off more often.”

“You sure you are not just saying that to make me feel good?” he asked hesitantly.

“Seriously?”

She arched an eyebrow at him and stopped moving. “What are you sensing from me right now, oh Master of my Claim?” she demanded.

“Love,” he answered immediately.

“So… no trepidation?”

“No.”

“Discomfort?”

“No.”

“Disgust?”

“No.”

“So just love?”

“Maybe with a hit of exasperation now,” he smiled shyly up at her.

“You deserve it for acting so silly.”

She leaned down and gently kissed his eyelid as he closed it over his milky eye. “How did you lose it again?”

“Training exercise with Nnoitra-sama,” he answered.

“And did you hate him for it?”

“No.”

“Then what in heaven makes you think I would hate you over _this_ accident, hmm?”

“Insecurity,” he admitted.

“Really, after ten years?”

Tesra blushed in embarrassment but nodded his head.

“Well then, I will just have to show you how much I love you,” she purred down at him.

“I have no objections to that,” he smiled up at her.

She responded to his smile with a far more predatory grin, and started to move once more while clenching her walls when she went down. He let out a soft curse as the pressure worked his arousal and his hips rose to meet her once more. They continued like this for a while, their bedroom filling with the sounds of soft moans and flesh meeting wetly.

She flung back her head for bit and shifted backwards to adjust the angle so the thick shaft buried inside her rubbed so sensationally along the very sensitive spot inside of her. Sweat quickly stared to cover her body and she increased the pace a bit. She was so wrapped up in sexual pleasure that she didn’t notice the shifts in Tesra’s muscles until she suddenly found herself being flipped over and pinned beneath him.

One eye may have been milky white, but there was no doubting the look of pure lust that he gave her. Hooking his arms around her legs, he lifted her up and started to thrust into her vigorously. Her body bounced beneath him but she didn’t care. She dug her nails into his shoulders and let out loud cries of pleasure and he took the pace up to a notch as only an Arrancar could. He was moving so quickly in her that it almost felt like one, continuous rub.

Her peak rushed towards her and she went over it without even having a chance to grasp the edge. Her walls clamped down and pulsed as she came. Above her, Tesra shuddered and his own flesh, buried deep within her, throbbed as well, filling her with spurt after spurt of semen.

They remained entangled for some time afterwards, although he did release the grip on her legs, while they both panted desperately for breath. His skin glistened in the candlelight and she pulled his head down for another, soft kiss between pants. Tesra pulled out of her and she felt a rush of cum escape. The only downside to sex was how messy it could be and they were going to need to change the sheets before going to sleep.

In the back of her mind, the ghost of her old friend Chizuru tilted her head back and cackled with that insane laugh of hers, informing her that if the sex was messy, she was doing it right. Tatsuki banished the image with the same mental kick she’d once used to dispel the real girl as she’d draped her arms around Orihime.

Once they caught their breaths, they silently untangled their bodies and set about cleaning up. It was in no way an awkward silence, but rather a comfortable one they shared in exhaustion. She did hide his eye patch in her hakama pocket though and then played innocent when she noticed he was looking for it. He didn’t look too long as she pulled him into the bathroom behind her so they could shower together.

That ended in another round of torrid sex with her pinned to the wall and him thrusting desperately into her. He came first this time, although she followed shortly after. She rested against his chest while he cupped and toyed with her breast. They stayed that way until the water started to get cold, simply basking in each other’s presence.

The clock on the wall told Tatsuki that it was close to midnight when they finished making a new bed and curled up under clean sheets, her back pressed to his chest.

“Tatsuki.”

“Hmm?”

“I’ve been thinking,” he said hesitantly and even though he was behind her, she could read the apprehension in his voice.

“What is it?” she questioned, shifting onto her back so she could look at him.

“It’s just… I know we wanted to wait, but it’s been ten years with no sign of the attacks stopping…” he trailed off again, but she was now certain she knew what topic he seemed to want to discuss.

“You want kids of your own,” she offered.

He nodded his head and swallowed nervously before pressing on.

“I know we wanted to wait for the war to end, for things to be more secure, but there is no telling if that will ever happen, or what will happen to you. Not that I think the Locusts could kill you, but… you are still human and we don’t know if being here affected the aging process or even if you might age naturally.”

He didn’t bring up the subject of her humanity often. They had no idea how a human dying here would or could affect the rebirth cycle. No one knew what would happen to her, Orihime, or even Karin. Would they just pop out of their human bodies into soul bodies and stay here or would experiencing a death here result in them going back into the cycle to be reborn as humans once again? No one had a good answer. Tesra, on the other hand, being an Arrancar could live for centuries if something didn’t kill him.

The real question though, of course, was did she want children and did she want them now? Ajuga and Hana seemed to be thriving, as was Diaemus. Even Vindula and Abisara were happy. Tesra did have a point. There seemed to be no end to this battle against the Swarm in sight and she wasn’t getting any younger. If Karin and Orihime were able to raise their kids successfully, then there was no reason she and Tesra should not be able to as well.

There was also no telling in how long it would take to get pregnant. They had all read Szayel’s report on how the difference in power levels affected the chances of a pregnancy occurring and Tesra was quite a bit stronger than she was.

 _‘_ _However, the difference in our strength is no different than that seen between Orihime-chan and Ulquiorra,_ _’_ she thought. _‘_ _In addition, I am definitely_ _‘_ _stress-free_ _’_ _. I wonder what kind of child we would have. So far, Ajuga and Diaemus take after their father_ _’_ _s Resurreccións and I still haven_ _’_ _t seen Tesra_ _’_ _s release. Nevertheless, our child might not follow that path. Abisara didn_ _’_ _t. He looks just like Szayel does on a normal day, and Renji mentioned that Vindula looks nothing like Szayel_ _’_ _s Resurrección. However, their mother is a Shinigami and that may have had an effect._ _’_

Tatsuki let out a long breath and snuggled against her mate.

 _‘_ _Why am I worrying about looks so much? I know that shouldn_ _’_ _t matter. Am I ready for children and do I want them?_ ’

The first impulse she got was ‘yes’, followed by all the insecurities about whether or not she would be able to raise any child effectively or what would happen if she, or Tesra, or, Kami forbid, both of them were killed. What would Nnoitra think of the whole thing, if anything at all, and how would he respond to his fraccion producing offspring? Would the child be expected to serve him like Tesra did? What if the child was female? Nnoitra seemed indifferent towards Ajuga so she wasn’t quite worried that any female child of hers would attract Nnoitra’s eye as far as breeding purposes went. Any child they had would not be from a powerful lineage like Ajuga and if he wasn’t interested in her, then it was unlikely he would be interested in their hypothetical daughter.

Still, she brought those questions up, and Tesra answered them the best he could. Some of her fears were alleviated. After all, he pointed out, Nnoitra didn’t actively look for followers and it was Tesra’s own decision to stick by Nnoitra’s side, a kind of payback for rescuing him and keeping him safe while he was an orphaned cub. It was possible that if they both did somehow die that Nnoitra would take their child in. Oh he would bitch, cuss and moan about it, but he would do it, just like he’d let Tesra stumble after him over the years.

“Alright,” she finally agreed. “I’ll stop taking the pills and start taking the vitamins.”

“Really?” he gasped, now excited.

“Really. Just don’t expect me to be pregnant by the end of the month. It’s going to take time for the hormones to filter out of my system and even non-cross-species mating takes time, as well as good timing. The window is a small one after all and not every egg is viable.”

“I know,” he declared, pulling her tightly against his chest again and nuzzling her neck contently. “Thank you, for agreeing to this. I wasn’t sure how you were going to react since you seemed so certain that you didn’t want children before.”

“Yeah, well, that was ten years ago and a lot has happened and changed since then, such as how I honestly think I love you even more,” she purred.

“The feeling is mutual,” he assured her, given her a squeeze.

They remained spooned together and fell asleep in each other’s arms.

Yumichika wasn’t able to stay for long at the 4th Division, but he did spend what time he could with them. She was able to stay most of the time. The only duties she had were to help out with the battles and to present herself in Barragan’s throne room for a couple of hours in the evenings to prepare Yumichika to serve their master, and with Ggio sick, that left Yumichika to deal with Barragan’s lust alone.

He was a good sport about it and had assured them both this wasn’t the first time he’d had to do a bit of overtime, although the last time _had_ been over a century ago. He simple told Ggio to get some rest and recover and he’d find some way that the Arrancar could pay him back one day.

“How’s our kitty cat feeling?” Yumichika asked as he walked into the ward, pulling Soi Fon away from her worries.

He was still the picture of elegance, but someone as trained as she was to notice things saw that he was walking stiffly and that his normal grace was absent when he sat down, very gingerly, in the empty chair.

‘Recovering’ she wrote out on the chalkboard. ‘Unohana-Taichou says that the worst has passed and he should be able to come home tomorrow morning.’

“That’s good,” he smiled softly. “Remind me never to accept any favours from Szayel. He has an odd way of helping people out. I think I would sooner have a few lashes on my back that can be hidden than to be so hideous looking for a week,” he shivered.

“You’re the one who dressed me, what does that say for your taste?” Ggio spoke up, his voice raspy.

He had been sleeping until a minute ago. Yumichika’s entrance had probably been what woke him up.

“Yes, well, I was _not_ the one that picked out that particular ensemble,” Yumichika sniffed, pointing to the simple hospital gown Ggio was wore. “It does nothing for your complexion and it washes out your color. You have a very dismal appearance now, and let’s not even get started on your hair and how desperately it needs to be washed.”

“I could still sneeze on you,” Ggio threatened. “I got a pound of snot just looking for a home and that robe seems as good a handkerchief as any.”

Yumichika gave an exaggerated flinch and a look of pure disgust. Soi Fon couldn’t help but smile and make something resembling a chuckling noise, shaking her head at their antics. The two men had bonded well over the last five years and over the hours they had spent plotting to get her interested in Ggio. She had to hand it to Yumichika, he knew what he was doing and she’d been hard-pressed to make them work for it.

She could still recall the first time Ggio had asked if he could lay with her. He’d been so shy and hesitant as he stumbled over his words, trying to make it clear to her that he wanted to have willing, private sex with her, not the forced Claim reinforcements that Barragan always oversaw. She had relented only because he was cute standing there in the getup Yumichika had stuffed him into. Soi Fon conceded that the former 5th Seat had done a great job at picking out clothing that made him look attractive. He’d done the rest of it on his own, however.

The experience been more than satisfying and she admitted that he was a very attentive lover, as well as enthusiastic. It had also been nice not having an audience and to feel him so loose and relaxed with her instead of how stiff he usually was when Barragan would watch.

She honestly wondered why Barragan was so upset with the upcoming child. If he had been so opposed to her getting pregnant, why had he forced Ggio to hold her Claim over the years without allowing her to use any kind of protection? When she had still been capable of talking she’d demanded her birth control pills and had explained what they were for. Barragan had been the one to deny them to her. At the time she hadn’t protested too much; the thought of a Hollow being able to impregnate a Shinigami was absurd to her. Then Karin had gotten pregnant, and Orihime. Still, they were human, the common ancestor between their two races. What really frightened her was when Nemu became pregnant with twins. Soi Fon had redoubled her efforts to try to get her pills back at that point, but Barragan withheld them.

Because of the difference in her strength compared to Ggio’s, he had to refresh the Claim regularly to keep her in control. There had been a time or two in the beginning where she had almost broken free because it had gotten so weak. After that Barragan had made sure the Claim was refreshed, at a minimum, every three months. It was a bit of overkill, five months would have probably been adequate. She had always figured the real reason was because Barragan enjoyed watching her suffer for daring to defy him.

“So, when are you going to let me do something about your wardrobe?” Yumichika asked her.

Soi Fon pulled her thoughts out of the past and back into the present with a frown.

‘When His Majesty lets me wear something other than this,’ she wrote out.

She had been wearing the same simple white yukata for years, only changing into a black, tight-fitting combat suit when a battle took place. It was sad, but the Swarm invasions had been one of the best things to happen to her. She’d actually been happy when the Defence Net had fallen as it meant that she had something to do again instead of just sitting in her dog kennel until being summoned. Fifteen years of being used as a sex toy was getting, very, very tedious. At least she wasn’t alone. From the first day of their enslavement she’d had Yumichika, who did what he could to help her despite the fact they had barely even been acquaintances. Now she had Suzumebachi back and she had Ggio. She wasn’t alone. Not like some of the others, like the man slowly recovering just down the hall. She had no idea how Byakuya had managed to keep his sanity after fifteen years of torture and violent rape. The things she had learned Yammy did to him on a regular basis were considerably worse than anything to which Barragan had subjugated them.

 _He would have done well in the old 2nd Division,_ she couldn’t help but to think.

Ggio and Yumichika were still bantering back and forth, although Ggio’s voice had started to give out. She shook her head at the stubborn pride of men before stopping the chest beating by silently handing the nearly croaking Ggio a glass of water accompanied by a stern look that clearly said ‘drink this or suffer my wrath.’ He wisely piped down and drank the water.

“I thought I recognized that voice. It has been a while Yumi!”

They all turned to face the new comer at the door.

“Ajuga-chan, how wonderful to see you,” Yumichika greeted her. “I see those walking lessons I gave you have really paid off,” he nodded approvingly.

“They certainly helped, although I still feel more comfortable on all fours when it comes to stalking,” Ajuga shrugged.

“What brings you by?” Yumichika asked.

“I was just on my way to check up on Bya-san,” she answered. “Unohana-san said he woke up late last night when I asked about him this morning so I’d hoped he would be awake now. Mama and Papa got home yesterday afternoon but they were pretty exhausted. Mama was out like a light and even Papa looked pretty weary, but don’t let him know I said so.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. Are you familiar with my fellow ex-Shinigami Soi Fon, and our good friend, Ggio?” Yumichika introduced.

“Not really,” she eyed the other two. “I’ve seen you guys around, and remember seeing you at the little parties Aizen likes to throw a couple times a year, but I tend to avoid going too near Barragan.”

“I don’t blame you,” Ggio commented. “You are almost of age, and coming into your power nicely.”

Ajuga smiled at the compliment, especially since it came from a fellow Arrancar.

“Yeah, Mama and I have started taking bets on how many males Papa is going to castrate and place in the 4th Division for looking at me in a way he doesn’t like,” she chuckled.

Ggio looked a bit pale and Soi Fon winced at the image, but Yumichika winked at her with one violet eye and gave her an appraising look with the other.

“I have no doubts there will be plenty of fallen corpses,” the dark-haired man said, as if considering the body count, “But I wonder if your own tally of neutered Casanovas won’t be higher than that of your father’s.”

“Better believe it,” she grinned with a feral look on her face.

All four of them got a good snicker out of both the estimate and Ajuga’s confidence. She hadn’t had much of a chance to meet Ajuga and admitted to herself that she liked the girl, despite her heritage. The child, no, the young woman definitely had potential. Even now, standing right in front of her, Soi Fon could not get a wisp of a reiatsu reading from her. If Ajuga hadn’t been standing before her, she never would have known the hybrid was there. Such a talent would have been exceedingly useful to the Onmitsukido.

“Anyhow, I just wanted to pop in and say ‘hi’.”

“How is Kuchiki-san doing?” Yumichika asked before Ajuga could depart.

“He was pretty beaten up, but he’ll recover. He would give us that disapproving glower of his if he thought we were worried about him. You know the one I am talking about, the one he used to get when I romped through his flower beds.”

Oh yes, Soi Fon knew the look Ajuga was referring to, and judging by Yumichika’s laugh, he found it amusing too. Ggio wasn’t really familiar with what they were talking about and his expression seemed puzzled.

“Well, you better go check on him then. Thank you for stopping by, Ajuga-chan!” Yumichika winked at her.

“No problem,” Ajuga replied and waved before continuing down the hall.

That was a curious meeting. Soi Fon hadn’t known that the hybrid child was familiar, and apparently on friendly terms, with Kuchiki Byakuya. She was surprised the noble would have anything to do with her, especially one with Kurosaki blood running through her veins. It was common knowledge that Byakuya held Ichigo in high disdain. Then again, Ichigo was a brash, disrespectful young man, or he used to be. Soi Fon didn’t know what he was like now that he had to be in his thirties. He was also clearly good friends with his younger sister Rukia and that definitely had to rub Byakuya the wrong way.

“Ah, you are all awake,” Unohana smiled pleasantly as she walked into the room. “How are you feeling Ggio-san?”

“Better,” he answered, his voice still hoarse.

“That is good to hear. If your vitals are stable this evening, then you’ll be free to leave in the morning. Do try to take better care of yourself. Still, I wonder how you managed to catch such a dreadful virus?” she shook her head in wonder.

No one commented but all three thought of a pink-haired boy who had seemingly tripped while carrying a loaded test tube. It had been an uncomfortable, nose running, fever inducing way to have given Ggio a bit of a break, but he had recovered and the lacerations that had marred his body were nothing more than almost-faded scars.

Soi Fon placed a hand on her belly, well aware that no such underhanded, if well-meaning trick, could help her with the problem she faced now.


	15. Childish

“Well, what have you learned so far, my Seventh?” Aizen asked Szayel.

The two of them stood before the large Plexiglas window, gazing down at the Scarab. It slept soundly, curled up contently in a corner. After being led into the cell, it hadn’t tried to escape once, which made the Espada put in charge of the thing more uneasy than it should have. Almost all creatures kept in cages made at least one attempt to gain their freedom. This wasn’t exactly what Szayel would consider ‘normal’ animal behaviour.

“It appears to possess a dog-like intelligence. It knows when feeding time comes around and it gets excited just before the doors open.”

“It acts as if it’s domesticated. I see. What are you feeding it?”

Then again, some aspects of the Scarab, like its much smaller cousins, remained disgustingly typical.

“Cattle, horse, oxen and other such animal dung collected from farms outside of the city, almost 100 pounds of it a day,” Szayel replied and barely repressed a shudder.

Aizen raised an eyebrow at that answer. Szayel didn’t blame him. It was getting tedious tracking that much animal waste in, not to mention the smell it created.

“I’ve also had to greatly increase the oxygen levels in the room. This is the first chance my Division has had to study a live subject. We’ve discovered that they have higher oxygen requirements than we expected. This means that it is very unlikely they have a base here in Soul Society. The percentage of oxygen in the Seireitei’s atmosphere isn’t conducive for long-term support. It’s my belief that, frankly, they would die of oxygen deprivation if left in this environment for too long. I would give the smaller members of the Swarm a week before that happened.

“Like all insects, they are very fastidious in their grooming. This one spends at least six hours, per day, cleaning itself. We noticed from the beginning that it dislikes Hollows immensely and it will attack any I send in with the meals. Their tolerance of Shinigami is hit-or-miss. With the permission of their ‘masters’, my staff discovered that they have a keen interest in humans. Unfortunately, the humans we do have access to lack the strength to carry 100lbs of excrement into the cage on their shoulders, although, I believe they are just saying that because they don’t want to touch the feed.”

That pulled a faint smile out of Aizen, and it was one Szayel nervously matched. Karin gave him an emphatic ‘NO!’ when he had asked her to do so and had then informed him she would not permit him to ask the other girls to do so either. It really was a pity, Szayel thought, that his mistress was so squeamish about a few tons of cow pies.

“We also discovered that if we send Karin or Tatsuki in first, the specimen focuses on them and Nemu can get the bags of feed in without trouble,” Szayel continued. “I haven’t had much chance to study how they work yet, but we’ve found that the creature’s wings give off some sort of low level energy signature. It’s not reiatsu, but something else. We have yet to isolate its exact energy type.”

Szayel continued with his report, relating to Aizen everything he’d learned so far, while holding back a few important bits of information: that it was Karin who had snagged the creature’s interest, not Tatsuki and that it recognized and responded to her immediately, displaying a childlike obedience. One night, he’d even wondered if Karin couldn’t get it to fly through a flaming hoop.

He’d discarded the idea when he remembered that the level of oxygen in the chamber, exposed to any sort of flame, plus the methane from the feed, would equal an explosion and flames the likes of which had probably died out with the late Soutaichou.

Still, it was _such_ a tempting thought.

“How long will it take to discover how their portals work?” Aizen inquired.

“It’s hard to say. We need to identify and understand the properties of the energy source they use first. There could be a sort of positive/negative orientation to them as well and it may take two differently ‘charged’ Scarabs to create a portal. The need for another with the same charge is also possible but less likely, as any charge they might create would be much weaker and more easily disturbed, and thus less stable.”

He had become almost comfortable during the long conversation. When Aizen wanted to torment him, he usually did so in the ‘playroom’ in the Palace’s basement. When he showed up here, it was generally all about business. In addition, as much as it sickened him to entertain the thought, let alone acknowledge it, he felt safer knowing that Karin was back. Aizen’s amusement with her might have shifted to annoyance after the little altercation last week, however. He certainly hoped not, as she was the only reason he was not underneath Aizen every week for the smallest imagined slight. He couldn’t help but feel a certain amount of disgust with himself. It was outrageous that an Espada such as he found himself reduced to cowering in a human woman’s shadow.

“Continue with your research and inform me the moment you learn what sort of energy the Swarm is using. I trust it won’t take you too long.” The confident smile Aizen gave him didn’t offer friendly encouragement to do his best. Instead, it promised him pain should he take too long in cracking the creature’s secrets.

“Of course, Kami-sama. Unless you wish otherwise, I will focus exclusively on this project. My team should be able to deal with placing the last of the depth sounders unsupervised. Unlike the Defence Net poles, their positions do not have to be precisely laid out.”

“So be it.”

With that, Aizen turned and walked out, leaving Szayel alone in the lab attached to the holding cell. He let out a long sigh of relief as the sound of the door sealing faded. He was finally alone with his thoughts and in one piece. After a meeting with Aizen, he tended to count that as at least a ‘pass.’

The meeting had gone well, and despite his ingrained fear of his ruler, he had to admit he was excited to show off his knowledge. They had learned a lot about how the Swarm functioned from Specimen S4-01 or ‘Mushi’ as Karin had nicknamed the darned thing. He wasn’t happy about the appellation. It meant she was going to get attached to the damnable thing and any hope he had of convincing her to conduct some of the experiments he needed to, ones he knew she would morally object to, had pretty much flown out the window.

Still, he had to admit even he had grown grudgingly fond of Mushi over the last few days. For a bug, (he or she, Szayel hadn’t determine the thing’s gender yet) it had been a willing participant. Mushi was completely obsessed with Karin and acted like an excitable puppy when she appeared, chittering rapidly away whenever it saw the young woman and Szayel knew, without a shadow of doubt, Mushi was speaking in the Swarm’s language. He had Nemu working on whether or not they could translate the sounds into something meaningful but Mushi only ‘spoke’ when Karin was there.

Since no one knew when Aizen was going to stop by, and as Karin was busy with her own duties, she hadn’t been able to spend much time assisting Szayel in his research. It was so frustrating to him. If they could translate and recreate the language, they might be able to communicate with the Swarm, or at least determine their battle plans.

Of course, that could also turn into a double-edged sword. If Aizen learned _why_ the Swarm had a vested interest in Karin, Szayel foresaw a veritable shit storm of trouble headed their way. He did not want to even _begin_ to consider what ‘Kami-sama’ would do to him should Aizen learn that he had been withholding such a tidbit from him, especially as it was information he’d possessed since before Karin had ensnared him with her Claim. It would make what he’d done to Szayel thus far, for minor infractions, look like a walk in the park on a sunny day.

Shivering, he forced those thoughts away and concentrated on mentally designing a machine to help him pinpoint the variety of energy Mushi’s wings radiated. As extensive as the combined collection of equipment of Kurotsuchi and his own labs in Las Noches were, nothing he had on hand seemed to be able to read it properly. Once he knew that they could at least _start_ making scanning devices to pick up that energy signature, he could begin designing a better early warning system. If the defenders could engage the Swarm hundreds of kilometers away from the city, they would also be able to use attacks with greater power without worrying about annihilating entire sections of the city and massacring thousands of souls. Not that any of the Arrancar, including Szayel, really gave a damn about the citizens living that far away from the protection of the city, but if too many were to suddenly disappear it would give the precarious balance the Realms had achieved a very violent shove in the wrong direction. Who knew, if they managed to get the front lines far enough away, Aizen himself might even be able to step in, and that would definitely cut the battles shorter.

His hands flexed on the window glass, leaving faint marks as evidence of both his excitement over the possibilities the knowledge the bug below could offer up, as well as his distress about the latest of Aizen’s unspoken threats. Szayel heard someone entering the key to the door from the other side and sighed. He would much rather concentrate on the former than the latter, since there was almost nothing he could do about his ‘leader’.

“Szayel-sama, the first of the corpses are arriving,” Nemu reported as she entered the room.

“Excellent,” he clapped in excitement. “Are they in good shape?”

“They’re acceptable,” she answered. “There’s the usual short term degradation, but once within a preservative field, they should last long enough to dissect.”

“Wonderful! I was worried Grimmjow might have shredded his targets and rendered them useless for my research. Pick one out and have it brought to Dissection Room A. Let’s find out what the insides of these things look like.”

“As you wish,” she responded and smiled at him. He found his mood lifted with the corners of her mouth.

Today looked to be a good day. He couldn’t wait to see what secrets lurked within one of those specimens, especially with regard to the wings. If he was lucky, he might even be able to capture some of the residual radiation on them to determine what kind of relationship the various Scarabs had to one another when it came to portal creation. He might also discover a way to determine their genders, if any, and he could finally put a label on Mushi as far as the creature’s sex. Such data was crucial when it came to courting a target. The more Karin could make Mushi co-operate, the faster his research would go.

Ulquiorra was pleased, although only those that knew him very well would know. He appeared stoic as ever on the outside. On the inside, he was impressed with how far Diaemus had come. Love was still a slightly frightening, almost alien concept to him, but he knew there were two things he definitely loved.

The first was Orihime, and that had been a very rocky road indeed. He still had no idea how he had managed to get her to forgive all of his transgressions over the five years he‘d forced himself upon her. It had taken some work on both their parts, but he understood now what he had done to her from her point of view, and it astonished him that she had ever absolved and accepted him. Women were strange. Grimmjow had once told him that human women were quick to forgive, if one could bend or even let go of one’s pride long enough to apologize, preferably with a fair amount of bribery and begging. However, Grimmjow had also warned him that, more often than not, they were the ones capable of holding a grudge until time itself had ceased to exist and they would make every millisecond of that eternity utter hell for the one who slighted them.

Thus, Ulquiorra bent, folded and swallowed his pride and apologized as best he could to Orihime. In return, Orihime had quickly changed. The transformation from an unhappy, broken piece of property into the loving woman who made his formerly isolated and joyless life truly worth living was miraculous, not to mention… rewarding. As much as he despised Grimmjow, and though he would never admit it to the other’s face, he could not deny that when it came to women, his fellow Espada was truly ‘the king.’

The second thing he loved was his son, a prime example of what an Arrancar ought to be, and who lived up to all of Ulquiorra’s expectations…. most of the time. There was only one other Arrancar child Diaemus’s age, and that was Ajuga. Ulquiorra didn’t hate Ajuga, or despise her for that matter. As Hollows went, she was an impressive girl growing into her power, who displayed all of the trappings of loyalty. She would make someone a powerful mate someday.

No, what Ulquiorra’s issues with involved her carefree manner, a frame of mind that frequently got herself, Hana and Diaemus into trouble. With the Defence Net down, he could almost guarantee that trouble would find them more often as well. Ajuga, like her father, craved the hunt. Neither Ajuga nor Diaemus had an assigned unit yet so when the squads did engage the Swarm, they both went where they liked, although they usually ended up fighting close to where Hana’s superiors deployed the Shinigami girl.

 _Perhaps it is time to assign them to a proper Arrancar unit,_ he thought.

It wasn’t that he was displeased that the children partook in the battles. In fact, he was very happy that Diaemus had stepped up without any prompting. The real problem was that rogues, under the leadership of no one but themselves, could be dangerous in a battle. They could ruin traps laid for the enemy simply because they did not know one had been set. They could trigger a trap around the ones setting it, or fall into a trap they didn’t know existed. As much as he admired his son’s initiative, as the boy’s father he needed to take a firm stand with regard to his child’s actions.

“You called for me Otou-san?” Diaemus asked, landing gracefully before him.

His son had become adept at using his wings and he’d become a master of the air currents in recent years. Unfortunately, now wasn’t the time to dwell on his son’s accomplishments. Diaemus had a new set of skills to learn.

“I did,” he agreed, putting the thought of unit assignment behind him for the moment. “Come,” he ordered.

Diaemus didn’t question his father’s command and followed him as he launched into a Sonido. He led his son to a clearing that had come to mean something to him, the very one Grimmjow and he had created. Whenever he found himself in need of a place to do some serious thinking, or unravel a problem, he inevitably ended up in this place. Diaemus touched down beside him and patiently waited for him to explain why they were here.

“It is time that you learned how to use some of the attacks of your heritage, and use them properly.”

He did a good job of hiding it, but Ulquiorra could tell that his son was excited at the prospect. So far, all of the training father and son had done had involved hand-to-hand attacks and defensive moves on both the ground and in the air. Ajuga had joined them for a few lessons, just as Diaemus had joined Ajuga and Grimmjow during their training sessions. Ever since the altercation in this very clearing, Grimmjow and he had come to a sort of understanding, a weary acceptance of each other. He silently applauded Karin for turning the insufferable Sexta into a tolerable, semi-productive Espada who had learned not to jump on and at everything that he disliked. Yes, Grimmjow had gone from being pure trash to an adequate warrior who proved useful during a skirmish. Ulquiorra certainly hadn’t thought it possible, but time and a mate with a brain had apparently worked wonders.

“First, you shall learn how to use a basic Cero. Once you have mastered that, we will move on to a Bala and, if you can learn and demonstrate that to my satisfaction, the Grand Ray Cero.”

Diaemus gave a nod of his head that betrayed only a little of his eagerness. He did well in keeping his emotions under control, lest an enemy use his emotions against him one day. That pleased the boy’s father even more, as it was a hard lesson that many had never overcome. A warrior with a cool head and an unreadable face was far more likely to win, even against a far-stronger opponent.

“Very well. Pay attention.”

Diaemus proceeded to emulate a sponge for the afternoon, soaking up the information as Ulquiorra walked him through the reiatsu manipulation required to produce a basic Cero. His son was not impulsive and had a large amount of patience, so the exercise in creating the small ball of energy in his hand and dismissing it repeatedly didn’t frustrate him. When Ulquiorra was finally satisfied with the composition, he permitted his son to try firing one at a tree stump.

The formation was perfect, the Cero at the correct strength he’d requested, and the target was only a little off, hitting the ground several feet to the left and behind the trunk. Undaunted, Diaemus charged up another small one and fired again, adjusting his aim. This time it just nicked the top of the stump and impacted a tree, splintering the trunk slightly. Adjusting one more time, Diaemus hit his target dead on.

“Excellent,” Ulquiorra said, and while an observer might have thought it understated, the praise was genuine.

Diaemus allowed himself a small smile, absorbing the paternal approval and lined up another shot. Right now Ulquiorra was more concerned with his son learning how to aim properly, rather than adding the component of power to the equation. Power would come later. A well-placed Cero was preferable during a conflict than sending off a large Cero that failed to hit their target. As the old proverb went, ‘friendly fire isn’t.’ He did not want to hear about his son accidentally killing or harming his own forces because he couldn’t aim a Cero accurately. Most Shinigami couldn’t take one without either dying or being seriously injured. The militia forces fighting alongside them from the Rukongai definitely didn’t stand a chance and in a war of this magnitude, they really didn’t want the locals trying to stab them in the back if they decided that the Cero wielder was more of a danger than the Swarm.

“When you have learned to hit the target every time, we will work on power. When you have brought your power up to an acceptable level, we will work on learning Bala.”

Diaemus nodded and lined up another shot at the trunk, a look of determination and concentration flashing over his features. The sun was setting before they returned to the den. Ulquiorra was delighted with his son’s progress and if Diaemus could replicate the results of this training session, he would allow the child to work on slowly adding some power to them.

They found Orihime humming happily away in the kitchen when they made it home, the house smelling like a not-too-outlandishly-seasoned supper.

“Welcome home,” she greeted them cheerfully.

“Good evening,” he returned her greeting, as did Diaemus. They had both learned it was far better to acknowledge the pointless salutations or she would make things exceedingly uncomfortable for them.

“Supper is almost ready. I was hoping I could invite Tatsuki-chan, Karin-chan and their families over for a shared meal sometime soon, barring a battle, of course,” she asked, looking at him hopefully. “It’s been so long since I’ve been able to visit with the other ladies and I can’t even recall the last time we all had dinner together.”

“In the spring, when Kami-sama held his usual dinner party,” Diaemus answered dutifully.

“See, it was such a long time ago!”

To Ulquiorra’s dismay, the amount of hope in her eyes increased exponentially.

He had no problems with Tatsuki or Karin or even Tesra, who would probably spend the entire meal in a semi-terrified state. Grimmjow and Ajuga, on the other hand… Well, Ajuga could actually be well-behaved when in the company of others, and he _had_ just been thinking a little earlier that Grimmjow’s manners had improved somewhat. He still didn’t really understand the humans’ need to socialize, but for her he could put up with it for one night. Besides, when he made her happy she tended to reward him with that thing she had learned to do to him with her tongue. He could feel himself getting aroused just thinking about it, all the while doing his best not to wonder _where_ she had learned such a thing. He suspected that it was after one of her infrequent visits with Rangiku. He’d never really understood Nnoitra’s fascination with the tall, well-endowed woman, but if she kept sharing information like _that_ with his mate…

“Very well,” he agreed to her request, pulling his mind back from a precipice that he didn’t want to throw himself over in the presence of his son.

Orihime decided, instead, to give him a shove.

“Yes!” she practically squealed, throwing herself into his arms and planting a deep kiss on his lips.

He didn’t know if the brief look of disgust that crossed Diaemus’s face was from his mother’s affectionate antics, or from the thought of having Ajuga over for dinner. It might have been a little bit of both. Either way, learning to deal with situations that he found unpleasant would do his son some good. Kami knew he’d definitely had to learn that particular skill over the years, considering the majority of his comrades.

“Well, let’s sit down and eat dinner,” she announced cheerfully, handing her son three plates from the cupboard. When Diaemus went to finish setting the table, she leaned into him, to whisper in his ear, “And I got a lil’ something special planned for dessert.”

He felt his groin tightening at her whispered promise. He also wondered, briefly, at what point he began letting someone lead him around by something other than cold logic. Looking at Orihime, he decided he didn’t care. When she handed him a stack of bowls and went to the stove to dish up dinner into the serving bowls, Ulquiorra took them to the dining room. There he met his son’s appalled green eyes.

“Otou-san?”

“Yes Diaemus?”

“Pease keep it down tonight. Oka-san can be … exuberant. And loud.”

The look on Diaemus’ face spoke of suffering endured mixed with disgust.

“You will understand better when it comes time to find a mate of your own,” he explained.

Diaemus made another face.

“I doubt that will be anytime soon. The options around here are severely limited and there are far more important things to think upon and do than to find some… female to hang off of my wings.”

“You are young yet. I do not doubt you will find an acceptable mate when such a time arises.”

Diaemus made a non-committal noise that might have indicated agreement, but Ulquiorra could tell his son only did so to appease him. His son was young yet, not even a decade old. It would probably be a good century before he would be ready to look for an acceptable woman to bear his offspring. Nevertheless, his son _was_ approaching the age where he could start casting Claims of his own. He might even be a target of a Claim himself, though in Ulquiorra’s opinion, that danger was much farther down the list of things to worry about. While he doubted anyone would be stupid enough to do so, and doubted even more that Diaemus would be interested in casting any of his own, it was probably time to have that ‘talk’. Briefly, he wondered if Grimmjow had ever worked up the courage to have a similar discussion with Ajuga. Taking someone on as a ‘pet’ was a huge responsibility. It was not something to do frivolously. He also didn’t want to think about how Orihime would react to their son casting a Claim, given the methods used to cast them. She would probably have a fit if she knew, or even just thought, about their son having sex.

“Are you coming?” Orihime asked, breaking him out of his thoughts.

“I am,” he assured her. “As I hope to be later tonight.”

Orihime sent him a surprised look over her shoulder, for he seldom, if ever, spoke in such an explicit manner. Still, the blush that cutely dusted her checks was well worth it, even if Diaemus gave him a look of revulsion as he walked past his father to get to the table.

Ulquiorra took his accustomed seat and happy that tonight’s fare was a normal dinner of chicken and rice. The times she’d forgotten about that little rule had been… excruciating. Nauseating? Repellent? There had to be a word appropriate enough for what he felt, looking at her preferred concoctions, but he hadn’t found it yet. He could have used the Claim to enforce that culinary rule, but they had agreed when she had accepted becoming his mate that he would not use the power he had over her for something as trivial as dinner. He had agreed to let her be her own woman and in exchange, she agreed not to inadvertently poison him.

However, Ulquiorra refused to think about how their entire relationship had only become possible due to Grimmjow’s influence. Nothing, after all, was one hundred percent perfect.


	16. Soul Shatter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a dark chapter at the end. Yammy is going to do something very unspeakable, and honestly something I have never seen portrayed anywhere else in Bleach Fanfiction.

He woke slowly, his mind muddled and confused. His body dully ached and he lay on something soft and warm, not like the firmer mattress of his futon. The room was quiet, with only the low hum of machines to break the silence. No, wait… there was a third sound, like someone other than himself breathing and he tried to think back to determine why he was here in this strange place. The last thing he remembered was blistering agony and overwhelming humiliation. He vaguely recalled Senbonzakura’s frantic voice in his mind. There was nothing after that and he took that as a sign he ought to be grateful for whatever had blotted it out.

He blinked his eyes open, but shut them quickly again as his world and the bed that he lay on spun like a child’s top. After a moment to regroup, he tried again. It took a minute, but eventually his sense of equilibrium kicked in. As he suspected, he was in one of the recovery rooms at the 4th Division. What he hadn’t expected to see was a shadow sitting in the chair at the small side table. He couldn’t make out any details, as his eyes stubbornly refused to focus, but he was sure someone was there, even if he could only detect them because their silhouette was darker than the rest of the room.

 _Who_? he wondered groggily.

It couldn’t be anyone from his family, not even a servant since no one associated with the Kuchiki name would ever exhibit such undignified, slouched posture. The body shifted and the unknown person stretched before looking his way and making a little surprised motion as they realized he was awake.

“Bya-san, you’re awake!”

_Ah, Ajuga-chan. Of course._

She was the only one who ever spoke to him in such a way, managing to sound both respectful and impertinent at the same time. While his eyes weren’t doing well, his hearing was still intact. He also recognized her voice, though it sounded a little tinny, as if she was speaking into a metal can.

“Don’t try to move yet,” she ordered sternly, moving the chair over and taking one of his hands in hers.

Her flesh burned against his skin, which informed him of a few unpleasant things. He didn’t need anyone to tell him the chill in his body was likely a result of severe blood loss. He felt so weak and still slightly dizzy. It wasn’t the first time he’d awakened feeling like this. He had felt the same way in the aftermath of his battle with Kurosaki, and the subsequence stabbing through his chest by Gin.

“I need to get Unohana-Taichou. Nod if you understand me and promise not to try and move.” Her voice told him she wouldn’t take no for an answer.

He gave her a small nod, indicating he understood. He would never admit it, but nodding was all he was capable of now, being too weak to move his arms.

“Alright, I will be back,” she promised, patting his hand gently and rising from her chair to retrieve Unohana.

He was exhausted, his body in the throes of a recovery that hadn’t completely happened yet. He didn’t recall falling back to sleep, but the next time he woke up to sunlight streaming in through the window and the chair next to the desk was empty. He tried to move to sit up, pausing when something crumpled in his hand. Abandoning the attempt to sit up, he unfolded the paper instead. The kanji were perfect and beautiful and he knew the writing belonged to Ajuga. He expected to read something like a get-well missive. Instead, Ajuga gave him a full page of information: how long he’d been out, when he’d arrived (or rather, when someone had dragged him in), what his state was to the best of her knowledge, and perhaps the biggest, somewhat almost satisfying piece of information, that Yammy had finally been punished for doing this to him.

While cheering him in the short term, the information held little consolation for him. Yammy had cannibalized a family member and horribly maimed a servant. Nothing could change that. Well, if Orihime was involved, the servant might have gotten her ear back, assuming his family had brought her here instead of to the usual physician. Helpfully, Ajuga had written out the answers to most of his questions, as if anticipating his concerns.

That surprised him at first, but he concluded that she had attended Jushiro often enough over the years during his stays at the 4th Division and therefore knew the most common questions someone waking up in this type of situation might ask. Perhaps the part that warmed him the most, not that he would ever admit it, was that she had promised she would be back after dinner, giving him an approximate time as well.

“I see you’re with us again, Kuchiki-dono.”

He turned his head towards the doorway as Unohana walked up to his bedside, the picture of serenity.

“Can you see things clearly?” she asked.

He gave a slight nod of his head.

“Any shadowing?”

That earned her a shake of his head.

“Strange colours?”

Shake.

“Spots?”

Shake

“Blurriness?”

Shake.

“Do you have a headache?”

Nod.

“Mild?”

Nod.

“Does anything else hurt?”

He nodded reluctantly.

“Now, I am slowly going to carefully manipulate your body. Give a nod the moment you feel any pain or a shake of your head if it feels fine. I want you to indicate with your fingers how much it hurts: one for a mild hurt up to five fingers for a sharp pain,” she instructed and smiled at him. He recognized the smile, the dangerous one that indicated she was serious and that it was in one’s best interest to comply if one wanted to live.

A part of him felt honoured that she’d pulled it out to use on him.

“Please put your noble pride aside and answer honestly. I do not want to see headshakes and ‘1’s’ when you are feeling a’ 4’ or a ‘5’. Pain is an indication of injury or infection and even a small ache can be a prelude to a bigger, life-threatening problem. Are we clear on this point?”

He gave Unohana a firm nod, indicating he understood and would do as ordered. Byakuya was thankful Ajuga wasn’t here. It was much easier to be truthful when he didn’t need to worry about frightening the young woman. ‘Young woman,’ indeed. He couldn’t really call her a ‘girl’ any longer. The child’s body had rapidly grown and changed as the years had passed. Ajuga was almost as tall as her mother was now and she might even reach her father’s height before she finished maturing.

“Let’s begin.”

Slowly, she went over his body. Despite himself, he still let out an odd hiss of pain and reluctantly admitted that there were a good number of fours and fives. Most of it was, thankfully, ones and twos, but a few spots still hurt, like the place on his shoulder where Yammy had impaled Senbonzakura, going right through to the scapula and snapping a rib.

Thinking of his Zanpakuto brought up the question of its location. He impatiently went through with the rest of the exam before grabbing Unohana’s hand before she could pull it away from him. He traced out the kanji for sword. ‘Sword’ was easier than trying to trace out the complicated kanji that either ‘Zanpakuto’ or Senbonzakura’s name required.

“I am afraid I do not know where Senbonzakura is,” she confessed. “He might still be at the Estate.”

He nodded to indicate he understood, turning his gaze aside, hoping that Yammy hadn’t done something foolish to his Zanpakuto. Unohana moved the bed into an upright position during his examination. The new angle allowed him to see the many papers strewn on the desk. Unohana followed his gaze and she smiled gently.

“Ajuga-chan. She has spent hours every day here since she learned your family admitted you. She was very upset over what had happened. I think she made these for you, but I will leave them for her to present when she gets back. You need to rest and recover your strength.”

Byakuya nodded in agreement, beginning to fade. The examination had burned up what little energy he had. Unohana carefully reclined the bed back to its flat position and sleep quickly found him. The third time he woke up, the sky beyond the window was dark, and Ajuga was slumped in the chair at the desk, clearly asleep. Another note lay folded in his hand. Unlike the last one, this note was a ‘get better soon’ letter. Her calligraphy was truly the work of a Master. The gift she had made for him years ago hung in a frame on the wall in his private quarters, which, thankfully, had never been breached by Yammy again after the time he’d been clipped by the Beetle’s horn, the brute tending to him personally.

Exhaustion threatened to overcome him again, and he didn’t fight it. Now was the perfect chance to rest and recover, to regain his strength before circumstances tossed him back into the hornets’ nest. Punished or not, Yammy would never change his ways. He had no doubt that his Master was going to be furious over Aizen’s discipline, and that anger would need an outlet. That outlet would be him. Yammy probably wouldn’t beat him again soon, with Aizen’s warning so fresh in his pea-sized brain. Instead, Byakuya would end up pinned to the nearest surface, the Claim reinforced violently and repeatedly until Yammy felt like he’d learned who was in charge. If anything, Aizen’s interference would make things worse for him. Aizen probably knew that, which was probably why the tyrant hadn’t really done anything before, either in his case or in the case of the others suffering similar abuse.

Byakuya drifted in and out of consciousness for the next few days, staying coherent for longer periods as the week wore on. Sometimes Ajuga was there when he awakened, other times not. Jushiro visited him on one occasion, as did Karin, Orihime and even Renji, with both of the twins in tow.

That had been a surprise. He hadn’t seen much of his former Fukutaichou over the years and it was a great relief to see the redhead returned to his old self, and thoroughly wrapped around the fingers of Szayel’s twins. There was no doubt about the affection his former subordinate held for his charges. That didn’t surprise him. He remembered several conversations with his sister about the young man.

Rukia and Renji’s upbringing, if one could call it that, took place in one of the worst districts in the Rukongai, where blood meant little when it came to family. That Renji had quickly adopted them, taking on the role of protecting guardian, if not an uncle, thanks to Aizen’s continued harassment of their father and the constant pressure put on the Seventh Espada seemed a good sign. Byakuya couldn’t help but to think that, despite the tattoos, Renji would make an excellent father one day, assuming he ever found someone in the hell that Aizen had created out of the Seireitei and Szayel let him pursue any such relationship.

Renji had kept the tone of their conversation light, but Byakuya could sense a new gravity in the younger Shinigami. He also exhibited a wariness that bordered on paranoia, but anyone that resided in the former 12th Division probably had that ingrained in them. There was no telling what might pop out of one of Kurotsuchi’s old laboratories. When Renji had determined that he’d stayed as long as was safe, he’d reached out and clasped his former Taichou’s arm, his grip steady, and it almost seemed like he wanted to impart some of his strength to his superior. Byakuya hesitated only for a second before squeezing back, noble pride, as Unohana called it, be damned.

His reward was a wide, almost boyish grin, one he’d thought lost a decade ago and though his face betrayed nothing, his heart sang when he saw it.

Unfortunately, his reprieve couldn’t last forever.

Eventually, Byakuya recovered enough to return home. Yammy even let him be for two days, allowing him to rest and recover in his room undisturbed before a nervous servant came to him with the unwelcome news that Yammy wanted to see him. The servants dressed him in the new attire the massive thug designed for him: tight-fitting leather pants and a fishnet shirt. They tied his hair back into a ponytail and reapplied the leather straps with clips to his ankles, thighs, waist, wrist, biceps and neck. The pants were uncomfortable and abraded his still-sore hips, but the fishnet top was loose enough that it didn’t aggravate his bandaged wounds. The mesh felt strange against his skin and he wished he could go without it.

“Get out,” Yammy ordered the help as he entered the room.

The servants that had just finished dressing him scurried out quickly and fearfully while others quickly rushed in and set up a table with food and drink before fleeing as well. Yammy took a seat on the large cushion the servants set out for him.

Byakuya felt his body go rigid as the brute’s presence violated his private sanctuary and his treasured personal belongings. His quarters were going to reek of spilled sake and food for days, not to mention his Master’s rank stench. Such thoughts instantly ceased when Yammy took something from his belt and laid it across his lap.

“Sit,” the brute ordered, indicating the cushion beside him.

He kneeled down on the cushion next to Yammy and forced himself to tear his gaze away from Senbonzakura. Yammy got upset when he paid attention to others and he had a feeling the situation was already volatile. He didn’t need his Master going off the deep end and killing or maiming more of the residents of the Kuchiki Manor just because the massive bastard was jealous of a Zanpakuto.

“Aizen-Kami told me you got to be close to your Zanpakuto to summon it. So summon it,” Yammy snarled, thrusting Senbonzakura against his chest.

He took the blade, feeling Senbonzakura rush into his mind, demanding to know if he was well. He assured his companion he was before reluctantly manifesting his blade’s spirit beside them.

“You can speak for my Chicchai-Hime right?” Yammy demanded.

“I can,” Senbonzakura reluctantly admitted.

“Good,” Yammy attempted to purr, but it sounded more like a disgusting grunt. “From now on, when there is no one else to communicate for you, you’re gonna summon him to speak for you,” he ordered, pulling tightly on the Claim. “Understand?”

Byakuya nodded, nauseated at the very idea of being forced to share Senbonzakura’s presence with such an uncouth individual. What he liked even less was the lecherous, contemplative look Yammy gave his Zanpakuto. Yammy reached forward and his hand went right through Senbonzakura’s manifestation. Byakuya still felt his soul dirtied by that oaf’s meaty paw.

Yammy looked about the room while he helped himself to the meal that had been laid out. Without a word, Byakuya filled the empty sake cup. He could feel how precarious Yammy’s mood seemed. Even after the beating he’d received from Aizen, nothing could quell the furnace of rage that burned in the Espada’s soul. The fire remained banked most of the time, but the smallest spark at the right time could blow it up into a raging inferno and once ignited, his temper took a long time to cool.

“Your room is boring as fuck, Chicchai-Hime. You need to liven it up. The only artwork you got in here is more freaking writing,” Yammy snorted as he eyed the walls with their collection of calligraphy and poems.

One piece must have caught his eye for he suddenly smirked, rose to his feet and marching towards the framed picture of Kanji and a Sakura tree mounted on the wall, the very picture Ajuga had handcrafted for him several years ago.

He quickly interjected himself between his Master and the artwork before the Espada could do any damage to it. Yammy sneered at him and simply tossed him aside to land in a sprawl on the floor before taking the picture down from the wall and holding it as if ready to tear it in two.

“This thing means something to you Chicchai-Hime?”

“It was a gift from Ajuga Jaegerjaquez,” Senbonzakura explained for him.

“Huh, who knew the she-runt had such a talent,” Yammy grunted as he set the picture down on the nearby dresser. He then snatched a smaller portrait from it instead, to Byakuya’s horror. “This bitch I know,” Yammy snarled before snapping the whole thing in half and shredding the photo before Byakuya could try to stop him.

Pain tore through his heart as the monster obliterated the portrait of Hisana, the only one left in existence, before his very eyes. An expression of surprise and shock crossed Yammy’s broad, ugly features as the overwhelming grief struck him through the Claim, so much so that he almost stumbled.

Without a thought, Byakuya shoved Yammy aside and gathered the torn fragments in his trembling hands, desperately hoping he would wake up or that the scraps of paper and glass would somehow reform into the picture of his late wife. He had not realized he was crying until the first tear landed on the back of his hand.

Yammy just stared at him stunned as overwhelming sorrow deluged the Claim before regaining his wits.

“Didn’t realize you loved that little tramp so much. If I knew that I wouldn’t have let her escape so easily,” Yammy laughed nastily.

The Tenth’s vicious comment briefly stilled Byakuya’s grief-ridden mind as the shock flowed through him, before his anguish turned to blinding rage. He had silently put up with everything Yammy had inflicted upon him through over the years. The rape, the humiliations, the deaths of a large number of servants and some family… all of it paled in comparison to this one, awful violation. He desperately wished that he could speak, so that he could send a string of curses at the monster, as well as shovel some knowledge into the vast empty cavern between Yammy’s ears. He wasn’t even sure where it was that he would start. Maybe he could begin by pointing out that the picture the beast had destroyed was of his late wife and not his adopted sister, as any idiot with any skills at observation ought to know.

Hisana had been far softer than Rukia. She had been delicate and her fragility showed in her picture. Hisana was _nothing_ like Rukia, and once he had permitted himself to get to know his adopted sister, the differences between the two were glaringly obvious.

Yammy wasn’t taken off guard by his rage for long, and he cursed the Claim to high hell as it prevented him from being able to attack Yammy in the way he truly wished, with Senbonzakura’s Bankai. Kido was the best he could do and without being able to chant the incantation, it was only strong enough to sting the Espada, which only pissed him off. If he’d been thinking rationally, he would have known this, but he’d abandoned rationality in favour of rage. He launched spell after spell at the bastard that had invaded his private sanctum and destroyed one of his most precious memories. His room was demolished under the sudden Kido storm as he let his rage play out. A large number of his possessions lay smouldering and the walls splintered from his display.

“What’s got your tail in a knot?”

Yammy asked this with a laugh. The great lout seemed more amused by his outrage than angered, as the Kido did nothing more than irritate him. The stinging eventually annoyed him enough for Yammy to raise his fist to Byakuya. The Shinigami found himself backhanded so hard he collapsed to the floor. The storm of Kido subsided abruptly as his ears rang with the hit and his vision went briefly black.

“That was not Kuchiki Rukia, but Kuchiki Hisana,” Senbonzakura answered sharply, rage in his Zanpakuto’s voice.

“Who the fuck was she?”

“Byakuya-sama’s late wife,” Senbonzakura answered softly, mindful of his master’s pain.

“Che, and here I figured that I finally stamped out the last little bit of your fire. I guess not!” Yammy laughed. “Still, I can’t beat the shit out of you like you deserve ‘cause Kami-sama told me I couldn’t punish you like that again.”

Yammy suddenly roared, releasing a small Bala that ignited the small pile of scrap paper, turning it into ash, along with a portion of the floor and the wall. Byakuya could only stare at the pile of cinders in continued shock and grief. The last portrait of his late wife was gone with no chance of recovering or mending it.

Ignoring his growing headache from the sharp blow to his face, he scrambled to the small pile of ash, staring at it in pure shock. His hands trembled as he slowly cupped the ash in his hands. He didn’t even realize he was weeping until the falling tears started leaving tiny craters in the ash below him. Senbonzakura knelt down beside him, resting an arm over his shoulder in a vain attempt to comfort him.

“So, since I can’t beat the shit out of you like you deserve, how the hell should I punish you?” Yammy puzzled aloud, more to himself than to his ‘pet.’

Byakuya ignored him, not the least bit interested in what Yammy had to say. His entire body shook in misery as he crouched over the remnants, the last thing he’d had to remember her. There was nothing left of Hisana now.

“Can you make him solid?”

Byakuya felt a spike of fear as Yammy’s grunted question forced his attention back to the situation at hand. He fought not to answer, but the amount of force Yammy exerted over the Claim forced a nod from him. He felt Senbonzakura stiffen next to him.

“Do it,” Yammy commanded.

He shared a horrified look with his Zanpakuto, even as the Claim forced him to comply. Senbonzakura lost his shimmering appearance and solidified. Byakuya could feel the sheer _wrongness_ of this suffocating him. This was simply not done! In fact, Senbonzakura declared as much to Yammy, his voice calm though Byakuya could detect the blade’s nervousness.

“Shut the fuck up,” came the response, “…before I make you slice your throat while your Master watches.”

“Your Claim is not with me,” Senbonzakura pointed out coldly

Yammy scowled in anger, and for a moment, Byakuya thought the Espada was going to club him in the head. Instead, the Tenth’s look of anger morphed into something much more sadistic and cruel.

“You know, Aizen-Kami said I couldn’t beat your pretty little face in since he needs you to help fight the Swarm, but he didn’t say _anything_ about your blade,” Yammy smirked at him.

Byakuya instantly tried to unsummon Senbonzakura, but Yammy clamped so firmly down on the Claim that he gasped in pain. Senbonzakura quickly drew his blade to defend himself, but Yammy simply grabbed his wrist in one meaty palm before the blade could fully leave the sheath. There was a sickening ‘crunch’ as the Zanpakuto’s wrist shattered and the blade clattered to the ground. Senbonzakura let out a strangled cry of pain.

“Let’s see what you look like under this stupid mask, eh?”

Senbonzakura sidestepped Yammy’s sweeping grab for his mask, but that was about all he could do with one wrist still captured. Even that small amount of movement pulled another sound of pain, one that turned into a soft cry as Yammy suddenly jerked him up off the ground by that same, wounded wrist until his feet dangled several inches from the ground. Senbonzakura struggled like a fish on a line, trying to get his arm free of Yammy’s grasp, but couldn’t break away.

“If you don’t stop wrigglin’, worm, I’ll break all your bones and make your master hold you here so you can watch while I fuck him until his thighs are stained red with his own blood. Got it?” Yammy snarled, tossing the threat into the Zanpakuto’s face.

Senbonzakura went limp and Yammy set him back down on his feet, but didn’t release him. This time the Zanpakuto spirit stilled as Yammy tore away the helmet’s faceplate and tossed it aside. No one had ever seen Senbonzakura’s face other than Byakuya. Others, such as his Grandfather, had met Senbonzakura, when they had been training towards Bankai, and more recently his entire household, which was mortifying. _This_ overstepped so many boundaries… Byakuya could barely think straight.

“My Chicchai-Hime is far more alluring, despite how closely you resemble each other,” Yammy spat, his appraisal less than happy-sounding. “Still… not bad.”

Senbonzakura flinched as Yammy cupped the side of his face and ran his fingers through his hair, snapping the hair tie in the process so the long strands fell down his back.

“Your hair is much coarser. Your skin is much darker. Your eyes ain’t nearly as full of hidden defiance and they’re freaking _blue_ instead of steel grey.”

“Please release me,” Senbonzakura demanded, his voice steady despite the fact he seemed as offended as Byakuya over the entire affair. The fact the blade was hurt didn’t help matters either.

They trained together in their inner world, so Byakuya knew pain wasn’t a new sensation to Senbonzakura. However, he was ill-prepared for an outsider to paw at him. Byakuya saw it first, the shift in Yammy’s eyes he knew all too well. He threw his entire force, weakened as it was from his slow recovery at Yammy‘s hands, against the Claim, mentally clawing and scrambling against it. He hadn’t struggled like this since his first month of slavery, and this felt far more desperate to Byakuya than that time. He wasn’t Yammy’s intended victim this time around

Yammy threw his ‘pet’ an amused grin before turning his attention back to the trapped man in his grip. Byakuya tried to shout out a mental warning, but Yammy doubled down on the Claim so strongly that Byakuya’s vision tunnelled and went black around the edges. The monster ordered him to stay still, to watch, and to be silent, all without a spoken word. Byakuya hated the fact that his ‘master’ didn’t need to speak to him to force his obedience.

“I can’t hurt my Chicchai-Hime, at least not visibly. But, causing you pain and distress hurts him as well, doesn’t it?” Yammy’s smirk widened to cover most of his face. “And Kami won’t be able to see the damage, will he?”

Senbonzakura seemed to catch onto what was going on now, and shot Byakuya a panicked look. Yammy punched his captive hard, knocking him off of his feet and would have sent him to the ground had it not been for the grip on his wrist.

“Pay attention to me,” Yammy snarled. “I can’t discipline my pet directly, so let’s see how well he listens when it’s his little sword friend who’s hurting!”

Byakuya could feel his energy draining as he threw everything he could against the Claim while Yammy also forced him to burn the energy holding Senbonzakura in the physical plane. Weakened thusly, he could do nothing but helplessly kneel and watch as Yammy tore the armour off of Senbonzakura and forced him chest first over the table, knocking plates of food aside. The panic and fear rolled off of his partner in the face of such an assault. To the best of Byakuya’s knowledge, no Zanpakuto had ever been used in such a terrible, unspeakable manner.

“Just remember, Chicchai-Hime, that it’s _your_ fault that your little buddy here is suffering,” Yammy sneered at him.

The pain in Senbonzakura’s eyes as Yammy forced Byakuya to watch this horrifying degradation ripped at his soul. His only consolation was that his Zanpakuto managed not to cry or scream in pain as Yammy forced himself upon him, into him.

“Huh, not nearly as nice.”

The lack of appreciable pleasure didn’t make the brute stop, unfortunately.

“I wonder,” Yammy mused, but didn’t finish the sentence.

Byakuya felt his soul suddenly flare with burning-hot agony and this time Senbonzakura did cry out in a mixture of pain and shocked pleasure. Each forward thrust of Yammy’s body into his Zanpakuto sent a wave of fire into his soul and his mouth opened in a horrified shriek as he felt the connection to his Zanpakuto waver.

“STOP!” Senbonzakura screamed.

“Why should I?” Yammy snarled, but he did pause.

For several seconds Senbonzakura just panted for breath, his entire body coated in sweat except for where blood tickled down his thighs. Byakuya, covered in sweat, his body, soul and mind raked in agony, panted desperately for breath.

“It’s destroying our bond,” Senbonzakura finally managed to gasp out, just before it seemed as if Yammy had decided to continue.

“So?”

“If I am separated from Byakuya-sama, I will cease to exist…. and his soul will shatter,” Senbonzakura answered in a tortured whisper.

Yammy’s face scrunched up in confusion for a second.

“You mean like Szayel’s pet used to be?”

Senbonzakura nodded his head.

“Hmm,” Yammy seemed to think about it for a second, before he continued thrusting.

This time there was no physical pain in his soul, so that at least meant that Yammy had given up trying to Claim his Zanpakuto. There was no guarantee that a Claim might have actually sundered their bond, but it wasn’t something Byakuya wanted to test and the relief from that pain was welcome. After such an assault though, he was mentally and physically exhausted. He didn’t have the energy to fight Yammy’s hold on him any longer and slumped against it. Truthfully, he feared that more resistance might encourage the monster to try Claiming Senbonzakura again. His vision started to darken and Yammy must have gotten his amusement’s worth of the act because he finished a minute later.

“Aren’t you two a pretty sight,” he sniggered, putting himself away and adjusting his hakama. “Alright, Chicchai Hime… You can let your little friend go home.”

Byakuya quickly dispelled Senbonzakura before Yammy could change his mind or think up another way to hurt and humiliate them. He felt his soul wrench as they fully rejoined and his Zanpakuto’s pain, humiliation, and horror merged into his injured soul, further damaging it.

“I trust you will be more attentive, Chicchai-Hime. If you are not, I will take my frustration out on your little friend again while you watch. Or…” Yammy suddenly smirked evilly, “make you do it”.

He froze up at the suggestion. It was such a vile thought! Not even Aizen had ever dared to sink so low as to inflict that on one of the captives. It would be infinitely worse than when Yammy had made Renji’s shuffling body mount him. At least Renji had been soulless and hadn’t had to suffer as well. Yammy forcing him to assault his own Zanpakuto would be the equivalent of self-mutilation, feeling everything twice-over as it happened

“I trust you will remember this lesson,” Yammy warned before fixing the rest of his clothing and storming away. On his way out, the monster deliberately stepped on the remains of Hisana’s picture, tracking the ashes behind him and smearing them in gray streaks across the floor.

He couldn’t even pretend to be noble with the horror that had just occurred. He fought back tears until he managed to crawl his way over to his futon, where he finally did break down and rush into his inner world.

Byakuya found Senbonzakura shivering under their cherry tree, the one he’d managed to regrow over the last few years. To the Shinigami’s sorrow, it looked as if someone had poured kerosene over the roots. The once-healthy bark had withered and curled up, and the tree’s branches had lost all of their fluttering green leaves. Most of the tiny patch of grass he’d worked to salvage had turned a sickly yellow as it died. After years of hard work, of progress to rebuild and put his inner world back on a firmer footing, the last few hours had reduced the place to rubble.

He could only hold Senbonzakura as his Zanpakuto’s body shook against his own. Never in a million years had Byakuya guessed that Yammy would discover a way to attack his very soul like this, but the brute had, and now the brute knew how to go about doing it again...

He’d bent over during the long years of training and the subservience Yammy had forced upon him. He’d done it to protect his family and those that relied on him, but he’d never truly given in. Now his very sanity was on the line and Byakuya admitted that he’d finally arrived at his breaking point. If this kind of torture continued, if Yammy were to persist in beating and raping him physically and spiritually, he would crack and let madness take him. The pain, oh god the pain of losing his last piece of Hisana, not to mention the agony the hulking bastard inflicted on him by trying to Claim Senbonzakura, felt like a red-hot knife in the gut. How much worse must it have been for his Zanpakuto, to have to experience the overwhelming pain combined with the hateful pleasure Yammy’s Claims always induced, even if the bastard hadn’t gone through with it?

 _Somehow, some way, we will find a way to flay the meat from his very bones_ , he vowed.

Senbonzakura only nodded in agreement, but his trembling never ceased. His Zanpkauto could have taken a beating, but rape… His last sanctuary had been annihilated more than any room in the Estate ever had. Senbonzakura’s blood soaked into the wooden floor where it would remain, a silent reminder of what would happen should he even twitch a finger the wrong way. Yammy would make sure the stain remained there, in his private quarters, even if it meant the floors remained dirty. As he bleakly looked around the shambles of his inner world, he felt the last bit of defiance die, snuffed out like a pinched candle. Only smoke and ash remained behind.

Kuchiki Byakuya’s only recourse now was to try to submit in order to survive and thus ensure the survival of his Zanpakuto. The small spark of hope he’d managed to keep alive fizzled out, replaced with the knowledge that no rescue was possible, not as long as Yammy lived and the brute had so far proved too strong for anyone or anything to kill.

Even if it meant he had to destroy what was left of his pride in the process, even if it meant he had to suffer through every whim Yammy had, he vowed that he would make sure Yammy never again touched Senbonzakura in such a way.


	17. Dinner Invitations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And now a palate cleanser for the last chapter

“How is Mushi-chan doing today?” Karin asked as she entered the observation room.

“It’s doing well, all things considered,” Szayel answered before turning away from the glass to face her “Must you refer to the specimen in such a familiar way?”

“Look me in the eye and tell me you haven’t grown just a _little_ attached to our not-so-little friend,” Karin challenged him.

“She’s got you there,” Tatsuki pointed out, following Karin into the room.

“I am merely interested in the creature as a research subject,” he sniffed. “The pursuit of knowledge should be free from such things as sentiment and anthropomorphism,” he muttered. “The next thing I know, you’ll be trying to put a dress and a bonnet on it!”

“Of course you are only interested in the ‘information.’ Just like how Ajuga is simply your ‘favourite specimen.’”

Szayel rolled his eyes.

“Of course she is. The data I’ve gathered on her is simply amazing and she is a very co-operative case study!”

“You do know you sound ultra-creepy when you speak like that, right?” Tatsuki informed him.

“It is not my fault that lesser beings are intimidated by my superior intelligence,” he declared haughtily.

“Sit, boy,” Karin ordered with a grin.

Szayel plopped to the ground, glaring dangerously at Karin as she forced him to obey the order. Tatsuki, on the other hand, started to laugh outrageously, although what beads, ears, and white hair had to do with this humiliation was lost on him. Karin seemed to get the reference though because her friend’s comments brought a small smile to her lips.

“Why don’t you use your amazing intellect and stand up?” Karin tossed the rhetorical question to him while Tatsuki did her best to gain control over her laughter.

“I hate you so very, very much…” Szayel grouched, crossing his arms and pouting like a perturbed child.

Karin didn’t like to use her Claim against him, as she was a strong believer in free will, but everyone once in a while he needed to be brought back down to reality when he really started to get his head stuck up in the clouds. It was either that, or she’d have to resort to another spanking. It was one thing to do it when he had been regressed to a state resembling one of her brother’s high school friends. It was quite another when he was a full-grown adult. Maybe she could get Nemu to do it, although, he might actually enjoy that.

Szayel quite glowering and pouting like a child and sighed. “Can you please let me up, Karin-sama?” he asked reluctantly.

“Sure thing. We have better things to do than waste time sitting around. I have work that needs doing back at my Division. Let’s get Mushi-chan fed. Is Nemu ready with the food?” Karin asked.

“She is waiting at the main deck for you,” Szayel answered, rising from the floor.

“Excellent.”

Karin took the nearby stairs down to meet up with Nemu. Tatsuki moved her way over to the window and looked down at the Scarab, which seemed engrossed with the task of cleaning itself.

“You know, Mushi is beautiful, for a bug,” Tatsuki mused, stroking her chin, as if she were contemplating a work of art rather than an insect.

Mushi spread its wings and gave them a flutter, as it the thing could hear the woman’s comment. They shimmered like a rainbow, every colour in the spectrum rippling across their surface. Mushi suddenly started chittering excitedly as Karin and Nemu entered the chamber. Karin approached the Scarab without fear and gently rested her hand against its massive head. The chittering calm downed, but it was still clearly speaking in its native language. They hadn’t had much luck translating it yet and Szayel thought that the ‘language’ consisted of both body postures, such as those made by bees, as well as sounds. They would have better luck talking to and translating Dolphin speech. It would take a very, very long time to begin to translate the speech, as there were no _words_ to translate. Everyone just hoped Aizen would leave it at that for two primary reasons.

The first, and most obvious, was that if they translated what Mushi was saying than Karin and, by extension, Ajuga’s secret would be out. Everyone involved in that conspiracy would be in very deep trouble.

The second, and only slightly less disturbing reason, was that Aizen wasn’t known for his patience. If he decided he wanted a translation and Szayel couldn’t produce one quickly enough, he might take his displeasure out on his favourite toys again, just as he’d done while building the Defence Net.

As usual, Mushi was unhappy when Karin left, but didn’t put up much of a fight, instead going for the large pile of food Nemu had loaded into the feeding trough. Karin came back up the stairs while Nemu finished securing the heavy, steel door.

“Have you thought about building a chute to deliver the food?” Karin asked him as she returned to Szayel’s side to watch Mushi eat.

“Yes, but I feel that my time and resources could be better spent on other projects.”

“Are you sure you just don’t want to study Mushi’s reactions to my presence every time I enter to room?” Karin asked suspiciously.

“Well, that may play a factor as well” Szayel admitted sheepishly and Karin could feel his growing apprehension.

Even after all these years, he still grew stressed when he thought she was upset with him. The worse reactions usually popped up right after a ‘play-session’ with Aizen and she couldn’t really blame him for being jumpy. Kami, literally in this case, knew how long Aizen had been conditioned him to respond in such a way, possibly for even longer than she’d been alive.

“Whatever,” Karin sighed, relieved when she felt his anxiety fade. “It’s harmless anyway.”

She did have a question and she figured now might be a good time to ask while it was on the forefront of her mind.

“Szayel.”

“Yes, Karin-sama?”

Karin almost asked, but paused when she noticed Tatsuki looking at her curiously. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Tatsuki. However, the fewer who knew about her ability to cast a Claim by touch the better. Of course, now that she thought about it, Tesra knew she could cast Claims as she had first tested her abilities on him. She had no idea if he’d shared that with his mate or not. Still, it was safer to stay quiet about that than not.

“Never mind, I forgot what I was going to ask. I hate it when that happens,” she sighed.

Szayel looked at her suspiciously, but didn’t comment on it. He had probably already figured out that she didn’t want an audience for whatever she was going to ask him.

“I have to get back to work. Are you coming, Tatsuki? We are running drills this afternoon and I know you wanted to participate.”

“Absolutely,” Tatsuki agreed with a grin.

With that, the two women left while Szayel turned his attention back to Mushi, who was still eating his meal in a very content, unrushed manner.

“At least Mushi doesn’t feel the need to roll it into a ball and keep his meal around,” Szayel mused. “Nemu?”

“Yes?”

“Can you please check on Abisara and see how that device is coming along? I want to start scanning the various wavelengths for any radiation from those wings sooner than later, before Aizen-kami decides it is taking too long to figure it out.”

“Of course,” she offered him a small smile before she left to check on their son.

Karin and Tatsuki walked down the street, en route to the 5th Division grounds when Orihime’s voice made them stop in their tracks. A moment later, the girl ran up to them.

“Orihime-chan, were you planning on doing some training as well?” Tatsuki asked.

“Huh? No, I am here to ask if you guys want to come to dinner tonight. Ulquiorra said I could invite you and your mates!” she announced both loudly and happily.

“Can you repeat that, as I am not quite sure I understood you the first time,” Karin requested.

“Do you want to come over for dinner tonight? Please!” she begged.

“Not that part, the part before it. Did you really just try to tell me that _Ulquiorra_ , the 4th Espada Ulquiorra, consented to invite _Grimmjow_ of all people over for dinner?” Karin asked with a raised eye.

“Of course! I thought I said it clearly…” Orihime pondered the thought, frowning a little, as she made sure that was what she actually said.

“Oh you said it clearly enough, but we are talking about _Ulquiorra_ agreeing to spend time with _Grimmjow_. Have you seen those two in a room together, especially if we are not present to remind them of their manners?” Karin asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Admit it, Grimmjow needs the reminder far more then Ulquiorra does,” Tatsuki muttered, looking at her nails.

Karin chose to ignore her. She really couldn’t argue with that statement. Sometimes her mate reminded her of an excitable child. Still, she loved him and didn’t want him to change. Well, maybe he could be a bit less foul-mouthed, but she had to admit that when he went all ‘hungry animal’ on her it led to some amazing sex. It made her core all tingly and warm just thinking about it.

“Well, I missed you guys so much! We are all so busy with the Swarm and stuff.” Then she paused. “I may have bribed him just a little,” Orihime reluctantly admitted with a faint blush.

“Ah,” Tatsuki said wisely, “that makes considerably more sense. Despite all your work on him, and it is noticeable, Ulquiorra is still not the most social person I have ever met,” she noted.

Orihime’s blush deepened.

“So will you please come?” Orihime pleaded. Her eyes widened as she attempted to give them her well-known and somewhat-feared puppy dog look.

“I don’t see why I couldn’t,” Tatsuki shrugged. “Although, I’m not so sure how comfortable Tesra will be eating dinner with Ulquiorra. Sure, Nnoitra’s scarier but at least Tesra knows what to expect from Nnoitra.”

“Karin-chan?”

Orihime increased the intensity of her pleading and Karin knew defeat approaching when she saw it.

“I suppose,” she sighed. “If anything it will be amusing watching my mate and Ulquiorra attempt to be cordial to each other for a few hours.”

“Yes, thank you!” Orihime gave them both a big hug. “I have to run to the market now. I’ll see you for dinner!”

“Yeah, see you later tonight!” Karin called after her.

Tatsuki just waved as Orihime ran off.

“This ought to be an amusing meal,” Tatsuki predicted.

“Now _that_ _’_ _s_ an understatement,” Karin agreed.

“No,” Grimmjow growled. “Absolutely fucking not!”

“Why, are you scared or something?” Karin asked innocently as she peeled off her sweaty work uniform. She’d led a sparring practice before coming home. The resulting sweat and dirt had her uniform practically glued to her body.

“Fuck no!”

“Language,” she admonished, tossing the smelly fabric into the laundry basket.

She could tell he was irritated, and not only because he looked like a bristling cat with a lashing tail. She could actually feel his unhappiness coursing through their bond. Karin decided to switch tactics. She knew her mate, and like all good women, knew how to get him to do what she wanted while making it seem like it was his idea all along.

“You can stay here then. Ajuga and I are going, however. Diaemus-kun and Ajuga have been getting a lot closer lately…” she replied, casually dropping what she hoped was a bomb in his lap.

It had the intended effect. She watched with satisfaction, out of the corner of her eye as he stiffened in outrage. Oh, Karin thought, he could _pretend_ to be the tough bad-boy, but the moment his little girl became the topic of discussion, she knew she had him right where she wanted him.

“How close?” he asked with narrowed eyes.

“Closer than the relationship Diaemus-kun has with Hana-chan,” she answered, reaching into the closet to pull out a nice yukata to wear for dinner, making a show of checking the lining and matching an obi to the print.

She paused as she looked at the one she had grabbed, the very one Yuzu had insisted she keep, the same one Grimmjow said looked nice on her. Every time she held it, it reminded her of her sister and, by extension, her estranged brother. She had written a hundred notes to Ichigo, trying to apologize for how she had spoken to him that day in the park, trying to explain her actions and why she did it. She tried to tell her siblings that for all intents and purposes, she was married now and had a daughter she loved, that they were, respectively, now an Aunt and Uncle of an amazing young girl. Karin usually ended up burning whatever note she was writing in a flare of Kido, unhappy with how it sounded. She wasn’t entirely sure she trusted Yoruichi enough to give them to the woman, despite years of sporadic communication with the feline.

“Fine, I’ll come,” he grumbled, breaking her out of her doldrums. “If it’ll make you feel better.”

Karin gave him a look of surprise for a moment before realizing that he ascribed her sudden depression to his unwillingness to go. She forced the gloomy thoughts aside to pay attention to the here and now.

“I knew you would,” she smiled at him.

Dropping the yukata to the floor, she closed the distance between them and gave him a hug, completely ignoring the fact she was naked. Part of his anatomy certainly did notice though as it currently poked her through the sudden tent in his hakama.

“What time is this stupid dinner?” he asked with an aroused growl.

“We have time,” she answered with a purr, melting into his arms and not resisting when he picked her up and all but tossed her onto their futon. “Insatiable,” she complained good-naturedly.

“Only when it comes to you.”

“Good, I would hate to have to castrate you for looking at other women.”

He had been a wild tomcat before she had brokered her deal with him. Grimmjow had been in the habit of bringing home a different Arrancar female several times a week and engaging in such wild sex that closing the door to the room she had shared with Yuzu hadn’t dampened the sounds much. He hadn’t so much as looked at another woman since the night she had given him her virginity in exchange for Yuzu’s protection. Despite the tense situation, she found that night was actually a fond memory now. She had been expecting him to take her as hard and fast as he did with his ‘conquests’, but he hadn’t. He’d taken her slowly, calmed her down and walked her through what was going to happen. It was the first time she had ever seen the better side of his nature. Karin hadn’t known it existed before.

All other thoughts about her first time with him and her family quickly flew out the window when she felt a warm, wet tongue run up her slit. She let out a gasp and bucked her hips up into his face. He anticipated her reaction and held her hips steady with his hands, eating her out like a starved animal. That act earned him several gasps and moans.

“Good, pay attention to me,” he growled.

“Spoiled house cat,” she declared.

“Panther,” he corrected as he prowled back up her body.

“Are you living in a house?”

“Yes.”

“Is a ‘panther’ a type of cat?”

“Of course it is,” he snorted.

“And are you horribly spoiled?” she asked, running her hands up and down his back and kissing his forehead.

“Doesn’t feel like it right now,” he complained.

“Well, I can assure you that you are, indeed, _spoiled_. Thus, as you have just agreed, you are a Spoiled. House. Cat.” She kissed his lips before he could protest, “…and, just between you and me, do you not enjoy being spoiled?” she asked huskily.

“You know it.”

“I thought so.”

Karin grasped his shoulders and rolled them around so she was on top now. She made quick work of the belt holding his hakama up and pushed them down to his knees so they were out of their way. His weeping erection bobbed between them, twitching in a desperate bid for attention. She dug under the pillows to find the box that contained their secret stash of oils and pulled out the first one she touched.

Pouring some in her hand, she closed the cap, set it aside, before wrapping her fingers around his length, and started to work the warm, pulsating shaft. His eyes closed halfway and his hands caressed her rear as she worked the oil over him with her deft fingers.

He bucked his hips up as she continued to stroke him, desperately seeking more friction. As much as she would love to continue to torture him, they did have a dinner to attend. Her fingers abandoned his shaft and moved their way up his body until they reached a nipple each. She gave them a tweak before resting her weight on her hands against his chest and lifted herself up so she could take him in.

She felt her walls stretch as she slowly enveloped his twitching, pulsating, heated cock. Resting for a brief moment, she wriggled her hips to get more comfortable, an action that wrung a hiss of pleasure from him and a tightening of those fingers on her ass cheeks.

Satisfied, she set a moderate pace, adjusting slightly until she got an angle to her liking. She arched her back and let her chest bounce a bit so her breasts jiggled each time she descended. Karin closed her eyes and simply enjoyed the feel of that long length assaulting the deepest part of her.

It wasn’t long until her efforts had them both breathing heavily and droplets of sweat broke out on their respective bodies. His hands left her hips and cupped a breast each, massaging them gently. She knew when he was getting close because his hands suddenly shot back to her hips and he started to thrust back up to meet her. His rhythm grew erratic after that and she braced herself against his chest. Karin felt him pulse once, twice and then gasped as his hot release filled her. One of his body’s spasms hit her in just the right way and she found her release. Her own convulsing walls quivered as her juices joined his semen.

For several minutes, they remained entangled with his deflated shaft still inside of her as they caught their breaths. Karin grimaced as she finally untangled them and a rush of fluid ran down her leg.

“I think it might be a good idea to shower before going over for dinner,” she suggested as she rolled to the side.

“Maybe,” he agreed.

She rose to her feet and tossed a smile over her shoulder towards him.

“We still have an hour to get there. I don’t think it will take that long to clean up,” she replied and smirked at him before sauntering her way towards the bathroom.

Karin heard the crash as he tripped over his own hakama, still pooled around his knees, followed by some foul cursing, in his attempt to race after her. Oh yes, _nothing_ made a woman feel more wanted and sexy than a powerful male falling all over himself to get to her.


	18. Family, Not Just Blood

Across town, Tatsuki and her mate emerged from the shower themselves, their flushed, rosy cheeks caused by more than just the heat from the steam in the bathroom.

“Not quite a record, but enjoyable!”

Tatsuki smiled pleasantly as she tenderly kissed her mate’s lips. “You are truly an attentive man, and I thank whatever lucky star that allowed us to stumble across each other’s path,” she purred.

“As do I,” Tesra agreed softly.

“As much as I would love to just stay in and enjoy more of that, I did promise Orihime-chan that we would be there on time for dinner. Are you certain you feel comfortable about going to Ulquiorra’s place this evening?”

It wasn’t as if her concern was misplaced, Tesra thought. He was only a fraccion and he would be sitting at a table with two powerful Espada, one of whom outranked the one he served.

“It will be awkward,” he admitted “but I know that this is what you and your friend want. I’ll survive until dessert.”

“Good,” she replied and nipped his lips again before pulling away from his warm body with a sigh. “I suppose we should get dressed before we become distracted. Orihime would be upset if we missed her dinner because we got sidetracked.”

“Hmm,” he agreed.

Reluctantly, they parted and made for their shared bedroom to dry off and dress. He had offered to find them a bigger place, but Tatsuki assured him that she was happy here, at least until they had kids.

 _How long it will take before we are successful,_ he wondered.

Tesra’s dreams of late involved an image of his Tatsuki, her belly swollen with his cub, surrounded by the healthy glow of pregnancy. Serving as Nnoitra’s fraccion, he had never even considered the possibly of having a mate one day, let alone having cubs of his own. Being what he was, he half-expected his master to choose any potential mate for him, in order to breed up another possible mate for Nnoitra. It would hardly be the first time such a scenario occurred. Naturally born Hollows were rare and those that found and Claimed them kept the ones they discovered under close control.

Yet, Nnoitra had never Claimed him, despite his right to do so. His first time having sex had been with the wonderful human woman he called his mate, who wore a golden ring that matched his own. They had lost their virginity to each other under a mutual exchange. Not even one in ten thousand Hollows could claim that.

“Are you going to get dressed, or do I need to do it for you?” Tatsuki inquired, already dressed in a deep blue version of his own uniform.

“I can do it. If you do it, we will be late,” he pointed out.

“True enough,” she agreed.

He pulled on a fresh uniform and ran a brush quickly through his hair before sitting down to braid Tatsuki’s long, chestnut-colored hair. Unbound, it reached the middle of her back. Tesra thought he’d finally figured out why she’d decided to keep her hair long, after a few long talks with her about her hairstyle. First, during the time that Ulquiorra kept both girls confined to the house, Tatsuki’s short hair style became impossible to keep thanks to Orihime’s ineptitude with scissors. Second, and perhaps the explanation he liked better, was that she enjoyed it when he played with and braided her hair back. Truthfully, that was a bonus for him as well.

Tesra finished in time for them to leave for Ulquiorra’s den, walking out into the frosty night air. She could not use any form of faster travel as he could so they walked. It wasn’t actually that far and it was a beautiful winter evening. They could see the silhouettes of trees, their bare branches looking like trails of ink against a deep blue sky, fading to black as star after star came out. Snow was rare here and rumour had it that it only fell when Hitsugaya was in a bad mood.

They were the first to arrive and Orihime greeted them happily at the door. Tesra settled himself in for a long, awkward evening as Tatsuki left him alone in the living room with Ulquiorra and Diaemus. They sat in silence for some time just staring at one another while the woman chatted happily in the kitchen.

“She seems content with your relationship.” Ulquiorra, surprisingly, broke the stifling silence first by addressing him and making him feel less like a potential component of the upcoming meal. “I am pleased you took my warning to heart.”

“Ah, thank you. Yes, we are very happy together” he blushed lightly. “She has just agreed that she was ready to try for children of our own,” he confessed, feeling that such information was safe to share with the Fourth Espada.

If he knew Tatsuki, she would tell Orihime, who would be unable to keep it from her mate and any other female she considered a friend. If what he’d heard was true, Diaemus and Ajuga were close friends. Tesra therefore doubted that Ulquiorra would be the least bit interested in obtaining he and Tatsuki’s offspring for his son, should he have a daughter.

That didn’t mean that the idea of the Fourth and Sixth Espada’s children deciding to pair up permanently didn’t fill Tesra with deep foreboding. Soul Society was going to burn should the day ever arrive that those two decided to pair up.

Karin, Ajuga, and Grimmjow arrived shortly after that. Judging by the look of suffering that crossed Diaemus’ face when Ajuga walked in, Tesra figured his worries on that score were for naught. There was no hint of affection in Diaemus’ posture or eyes for Ajuga. In fact, each seemed slightly irritated that the other one was there, with a thin veneer of tolerance lacquered over the top, like ice across a deep pond. Ulquiorra took the opportunity to send less-than-friendly looks at Grimmjow as Karin abandoned her mate to join the happy girls in the kitchen.

Tesra, happily relegated to the role of wallpaper, watched as the two more powerful Espada squared off with each other. He sat back and did his best impersonation of a side table, content to remain quietly unnoticed, and therefore unharmed in his chair.

“Hey Diaemus, want to head out back?” Ajuga asked with a challenging smile, hooking her thumb over her shoulder towards the back door.

“Very well, but I do not wish for you to complain when I defeat you in whichever game you wish to fail at this time,” he shot back, the boy’s tone surprisingly sure.

“Because you win so many of them,” she replied mockingly and rolled her eyes at him. “C’mon, before we end up having to help in the kitchen.”

That actually seemed to have some sort of effect on the young male Hollow and his eyes darted towards the kitchen in horror before he quickly followed Ajuga out the back door into the yard.

“Grimmjow,” Ulquiorra greeted his guest.

“Yo, how did _your_ broad sucker you into this mess?” Grimmjow asked as he collapsed leisurely onto the couch across from Ulquiorra.

“I would suspect the same way your own mate convinced you to attend tonight’s dinner,” Ulquiorra answered nonchalantly.

Grimmjow threw back his head and laughed. “Damn, she sure has got you whipped, boy,” he gasped out, showing no small amount of fangs.

“Implying that I am ‘whipped’ would also imply that, you yourself suffer from the same condition.”

“Yeah, but I can own up to it,” Grimmjow smirked. “What about you? Are you whipped?”

It took a moment for Tesra to realize that Grimmjow was talking to him.

“Uh, most assuredly,” he admitted. “The entire idea to Claim and mate was hers.”

Tesra wanted to sink into the cracks between the floorboards, his face reddened, unable to believe he was having this sort of conversation with two Espada. It only got worse as the minutes ticked by.

“Ajuga and Diaemus are getting older. Have you spoken to her about Claims yet?”

Grimmjow looked as if he’d swallowed a bee, but recovered quickly.

“Nah, I asked Harribel to do it. I figured it would be better if she learned about all of that shit from another female Arrancar. They do things differently than we do and she could answer the questions Karin and I wouldn’t have a clue about,” he admitted. “What about you?”

“Diaemus is younger than Ajuga, but I plan on speaking to him about it soon, preferably on a day that Orihime is not around. It will be uncomfortable enough without his mother hanging around and making a scene.”

“Good idea. You know how protective women get with their cubs. They’ll damn near do anything to keep ‘em safe.”

Tesra knew that all too well. His mother had put up with the bastard that had killed his father for the sake of keeping him unscathed. He wished he could remember his parents more clearly, but the only real memories he had from way back then were those involving his mother’s death and meeting Nnoitra for the first time.

“What do you think Barragan’s going to do with the brat his fraccion and his bitch are going to push out?” Grimmjow wondered aloud.

“I do not know,” Ulquiorra admitted. “The Second is acting… irrationally over the situation. It has upset Orihime greatly.”

“Karin too,” Grimmjow divulged, and his face took on a darker expression, unnerving Tesra, who considered discreetly scooting his chair away from the Sixth until he concluded that the only way he was going to get any farther away from Grimmjow involved abandoning the chair in favour of leaping out of a window.

“I don’t get that old poof. He had the gall to go after Ajuga,” Grimmjow growled “but the moment a potential naturally-born female is delivered into his pack and free for the pickings, he doesn’t want it? I think senility is catching up with the geriatric fuck.”

“Perhaps, or perhaps there is another issue we are unaware of. Unlike Ajuga, the lineage of this child, in his eyes,” Ulquiorra’s gaze flickered Tesra’s way for a moment, “is less auspicious.”

“She was a Taichou and Ggio ain’t half bad for a Numeros. He’s not up to par with us of course, but he ain’t no pathetic wimp either. I half suspect he’s naturally born too, because I’ve never seen his hole. Have you?”

Tesra had often wondered if he wasn’t the only pureblooded naturally born Hollow amongst the Arrancar. He had never dared to approach Ggio to ask though. Potential enemies simply did not share that kind of dangerous information. Barragan’s taste for young, feminine-looking males was a poorly kept secret amongst the Numeros and he didn’t want to give the Second any reason to start looking at him. There was no guarantee that Nnoitra would have protected him and might have even traded him off. Still, the thought of talking to another with a heritage similar to his was a serious temptation.

“What do you think?” It took a moment for Tesra to realize Grimmjow had spoken to him.

“Perhaps,” he said slowly and thought about what he knew of Barragan and his reputation amongst the lower ranks, “Barragan-sama is less upset over the lineage, so much as having the affections of one of his subjects… not centered on him,” he offered his theory hesitantly, unsure if he’d be laughed at or taken seriously.

“Expound on your observation,” Ulquiorra ordered.

“Well,” he licked his lips and wondered if he should even be talking about this in front of his superiors before deciding he didn’t have much of a choice, “…when we were still stationed in Hueco Mundo, before Aizen-Kami joined us, he caught one of his former fraccion courting another. He disposed of them both and he seemed incredibly angry over the affair.”

“Now _that_ is pathetic,” Grimmjow snorted. “The ‘King of Hueco Mundo’ can’t even keep his own toys interested in him? He must be a terrible… ah, partner…” Grimmjow quickly changed his word as Karin walked into the living room to join them.

“The walls are still standing, I am almost scared to ask what you’re all talking about,” Karin commented as she sat down on the couch closest to her mate.

“Barragan and why he’s so against the brat Ggio’s having with _His Majesty_ _’_ _s_ female pet,” Grimmjow replied. “Tesra here has a good theory going.”

“She doesn’t belong to Barragan.”

Karin’s announcement took everyone aback and Tesra wondered how in the hell a human woman would know something like that. Then his memory kicked him a few times and he stared down at his hands before he made a fool of himself.

“I can see Claims, remember?” she explained to the three confused males.

Oh right, she could see _and_ manipulate reiatsu and, as a result, could cast Claims of her own, which he knew from personal experience. He had forgotten about that little fact. He’d kept quiet about it for so long that he’d managed to put it completely out of his mind.

“Ggio stole his Espada’s pet. Man, that’s just hilarious!” Grimmjow laughed, until his mate shook her head.

“Unless something changed in the first five years before you dragged me to my first Claim Meeting, Barragan has _never_ held her Claim. I noticed it the first time I saw her, but it wasn’t until I met Ggio that I realized he was the one holding her, which is odd because he’s weaker than she is. She’s _far_ more powerful.”

“The only way for such to have occurred would be for him to have done so while she was weakened and then to maintain it regularly,” Ulquiorra noted.

“Means he’s probably been doing her like clockwork since we won the Winter War. Heh. Barragan has only himself to blame for her getting knocked up, if he was the one ordering his fraccion to keep screwing her,” Grimmjow scoffed.

“What makes you believe Barragan is ordering Ggio to do so?” Ulquiorra replied, and not in a way that made it sound as if he questioned Grimmjow’s intelligence. Instead, it sounded as if Ulquiorra wanted Grimmjow to explain his reasoning.

“Why else would be bring his fraccion’s pet to the Claim Meetings as if she were his own? We all know his sexual preferences. I guarantee you he probably has Ggio holding her so he doesn’t have to degrade himself on her tainted female body.”

Ulquiorra seemed to ponder that before given a reluctant nod of his head. “You may be correct in your assumption.”

Tesra stared at Ulquiorra in surprise. He might not be on friendly terms with the other Espada, but everyone knew the basics, and Ulquiorra conceding to one of Grimmjow’s points was definitely not a behaviour any of the Numeros, be they a Fraccion or not, had ever documented. More so, Grimmjow didn’t make an issue of scoring some imaginary point and Karin sent her mate a small smile, probably a reward for doing so.

“What brought you two around to discussing such gossip anyway?” Karin asked.

Ulquiorra looked instantly affronted at the very idea that they had been gossiping while Grimmjow hesitated over the answer. Tesra wondered if the evening was going to get any more surreal that it already had.

The answer was a resounding ‘YES’.

A loud explosion saved the Sixth Espada from coming up with an excuse or an answer.

Before anyone could move to see what caused the ruckus, Ajuga and Diaemus stumbled into the house, both of them smoking with singed fur where they had it, covered in soot, and coughing slightly

“What happened?” Karin asked before anyone else could.

Orihime rushed to her son’s side, examining him for injuries while he protested weakly and tried to get her to stop. Ajuga, who had been the first to recover, had a pleased smirk on her face.

“I won the contest!” she announced proudly.

“You are beyond irresponsible!” Diaemus spat at her, and then coughed out a lungful of gray air.

“Eh, I won, fair’s fair and all that,” she shrugged, brushing off her fur.

“Ajuga Jaegerjaquez…” Karin said dangerously.

The effect was instant. Ajuga froze and all signs of merriment on the girls’ face vanished, replaced with a healthy dose of fear. Karin’s voice even rattled Tesra for a moment.

“What happened?” her mother demanded, hands on her hips.

“Umm,” Ajuga looked suddenly nervous as all eyes were on her. “We were having a contest and I won,” she answered sheepishly.

“Ajuga,” Karin’s voice dropped an octave and sounded more threatening than Nnoitra did when he was pissed.

Tesra, for his part, started eyeing the window. Just in case. He caught Grimmjow doing the same thing, so he didn’t feel too bad about it.

“Fine, we were seeing who could make a bigger Cero ball and maintain it for the longest,” Ajuga finally confessed.

“Cero?” Karin asked confused.

Grimmjow instantly lost interest in the window and interjected himself into the conversation, rising to his feet as Karin just stared at her daughter in shock. “Where on earth did you get an idea to start playing with those?” he snapped.

“Diaemus,” Ajuga shamelessly passed the blame. “The entire contest was his idea,” she added for good measure.

Now Diaemus had a look of embarrassment and his own gaze dropped to his clawed, almost birdlike feet.

“Diaemus?” Ulquiorra sent his son a stern look. “Did I not inform you that you were not to practice or use a Cero unsupervised?”

“Yes, Otou-san,” he muttered.

“You taught him how to play with a Cero?” Grimmjow asked and his jaw dropped. Ulquiorra glanced at the Sixth and then fixed his green eyes on his son.

“Until now, he displayed the proper discipline to be trusted with such a power. Perhaps I was mistaken.”

Diaemus’ entire posture drooped and water pooled at the corners of his eyes.

“Go to your room and think about what you have done,” Ulquiorra ordered his son.

“Yes, Otou-san,”

Orihime looked worriedly after her son as he obeyed, but Ulquiorra caught her eyes and she let go of any protests she might have had.

“And as for you, since I know you probably instigated the whole thing, you can go sit on the front steps and stay there until after dinner,” Grimmjow ordered sternly.

“What?” Ajuga protested, shocked she was being punished, and by her _father_ of all people.

“Now!” he ordered firmly.

Scowling, she marched out the front door.

“You slam that door and I _will_ tan your hide,” Grimmjow added, clearly reading her intent in her posture.

Ajuga scowled, but closed the door properly. Grimmjow sent Karin a look and she nodded her head, indicating Ajuga was doing as ordered. There was a tense silence in the room for a moment before Grimmjow was the first to break and start laughing, although not so loudly the two children could hear.

“A Cero? Seriously Ulquiorra, you taught him _that_?”

“Mmm… I love it when you are a good father,” Karin purred as she pulled her mate back down onto the couch and settled into his lap facing him so she could give him a solid kiss.

“They aren’t hurt, are they?”

Orihime’s eyes had followed her son down the hall and the worry in her voice was clear.

“The only thing singed is their collective pride, and maybe a bit of fur,” Tatsuki answered her friend while moving over to sit in Tesra’s lap as well.

Tesra breathed a bit easier as the friction drained from the room and the adults could finally see the humour in the situation. It also helped to have his hands occupied with a lapful of mate. It _was_ funny when he thought about it. What surprised him the most though, was that he had expected the two Espada to defend their children and start at one another over which child was more at fault, not to discipline them both and send them to an obvious ‘time out.’

Orihime, being the only one still standing, poked her head out the back door and let out a gasp of dismay before sighing and making a comment along the lines of ‘well, the backyard needed re-landscaping anyway’ and ‘I’ve always wanted a swimming pool.’ She rejoined them in the living room and informed the assembled guests that supper would be ready in a couple of minutes.

The rest of the evening passed calmly, and the conversation never seemed strained. Both fathers permitted their respective children to join them at the table halfway through dinner and the culprits ate in reproachful silence, eyes glued to their plates. By the time the ‘dinner party’ wrapped up, a sickle-shaped moon had climbed high in the night sky. Tatsuki had clearly had a good time, her eyes sparkling in delight, as had Orihime’s when he thought about it.

They walked down the street with Tatsuki leaning against him with a small smile on her face. It hadn’t been as uncomfortable of an evening as he had thought it would be. In fact, it had almost been… pleasant. Tatsuki suddenly chuckled and he glanced down at her, wondering what she found humorous.

“Sorry, just thinking about Ajuga and Diaemus remodelling the back yard,” she explained. “Those two certainly know how to push each other’s buttons.”

“They do,” he agreed, though he didn’t understand the whole ‘button’ reference. Tesra decided that it must be a Living World thing and let it go.

“Kami, could you imagine Nnoitra and Rangiku raising kids? I think they would pull their hair out by the end of the first year!” she laughed.

Tesra tried to imagine Nnoitra with offspring, but conceded that he would probably just end up being the one put in charge of any cub his Espada sired, much the way that Szayel had assigned his tattooed, red-haired pet to care for his twins. He _could_ picture Rangiku taking care of the cub some of the time, but the moment a dirty diaper came up he just knew that she would be calling for him. He switched the image to himself and Tatsuki instead. That was far more satisfying and they continued the walk home in silence.


	19. Fraccion

Ajuga could not believe this. Not only had her parents sent her to bed the moment they arrived home, but her father also informed her the following morning, in no uncertain terms, that if she was going to be playing with a power with which she might accidentally kill her friends and family with, she was damn well going to learn how to control it.

She had to admit she had never thought about that and the thought of killing Hana thanks to a wild Cero had been enough for her to agree never to play with such power again in a populated area. Her father had led her far, far out of town to a clearing not cut by natural means. There, to her shock, they had met up with Diaemus and Ulquiorra.

With a simple ‘make sure she comes home alive or Karin will kick my ass,’ he left her there. Now she stared at a tree stump with a smug Diaemus standing beside her as they fired low-level beams of red light towards their target. Diaemus had managed to hit his target dead on every time. She, on the other hand, was still struggling with trying to comprehend what it was Ulquiorra was trying to explain to her.

She could make a nice-sized Cero that destroyed her target, when she managed to hit it, but that didn’t seem good enough for Ulquiorra. He wanted her to make a smaller one by better controlling her energy, and for the life of her, she just couldn’t get it. She could tell by the way his right eye began to twitch that he was growing just as frustrated with her lack of understanding as she was.

It was a miserable day, and the ones following it only got worse. Apparently, since she had such a talent for getting into trouble, her father had decided to punish her by making sure she didn’t have a single moment to herself. It was hell! Her father had _always_ been on her side, and now he was the one sternly ordering her about. It wasn’t fair, which was exactly what lead her to a conversation seven agonizing days later as she walked with Hana down the streets towards the large house Harribel had taken after the War.

“Sorry, Ajuga-chan, you’ll get no sympathy from me,” her friend said, a little exasperated. “I have been busy myself between work with my Division and the extra studies Sensei keeps giving me. Do _you_ have the latest kanji done for Sensei yet?” Hana asked curiously.

‘Sensei’ was the scholar Byakuya arranged to teach them when they were cubs. That arrangement hadn’t ended when they’d grown older, although Sensei was far closer to Hana than he was with her.

“Yeah, the papers are in my room,” Ajuga answered with a scowl, “…and stop trying to change the subject. Something needs to be done about this before I lose my mind!” Ajuga cried out loudly in frustration as they walked up the steps leading to the front door.

The door opened before they could knock to reveal Sung Sun, a sleeve covering her face as usual. Ajuga frequently wondered if it was because she was scared of catching a disease or something, or if she really was just that bashful. She couldn’t imagine any Arrancar worth their salt being too shy to talk to others.

“My, you seem to be having a bad day Ajuga-chan?” she observed as she greeted them, her lavender eyes blinking.

“You have no idea!” Ajuga huffed as she marched into the house.

“I have been trying not to laugh,” Hana added, more to Sung Sun than to Ajuga as she also stepped into the house and gave the fraccion a small bow.

“Some friend you are!” Ajuga snapped irritably.

Sung Sun let out a little laugh as she watched the two bicker for a moment.

“Harribel-sama is waiting for us on the patio out back,” she informed them.

Both girls followed the slender, dark-haired Arrancar as she gracefully moved through the house, leading them towards the central court, sniping at one another all the while. Sung Sun was right; Harribel waited for them on the back porch, sitting in a sunny spot with a nice view of the ice-rimmed pond. A pot of tea steamed in the cold air and several platters of snacks waited on the low table. Mila Rose and Apache didn’t seem to be home but Sung Sun joined them at the table, picking out a cushion and settling down fluidly.

“You seem out of sorts about something Ajuga,” Harribel noted as the two girls found cushions of their own.

“You have no idea!” Ajuga pouted as she reached for a snack. Sung Sun, meanwhile, poured tea for the table.

“She’s upset because she got in trouble and now has to have Cero lessons with Ulquiorra-sama,” Hana chuckled, clearly enjoying her friend’s plight.

“Ulquiorra-sama?” Sung Sun asked suddenly, teapot poised in mid-air.

“How did this come to pass?” There was no mistaking the curiosity in Harribel’s voice as she folded her arms across her breast and waited for Ajuga to continue.

With what seemed to be the world’s largest chip on her shoulder, Ajuga informed the table what had happened and how she was now stuck in these stupid lessons and how ‘it was unfair that her _father_ of all people had suddenly ‘restricted all of her freedom.’ Sung Sun giggled softly behind her sleeve while Harribel’s eyes danced like ocean waves at the young hybrid’s plight, although both of her eyebrows had gone up when she learned that Grimmjow had been the one to put his foot down and not Karin, whose fierce reputation had made a name for itself amongst the Arrancar. Anyone who could tame the Aspect of Destruction was someone to respect, if not outright fear.

“I see,” Harribel said at the end of Ajuga’s tale of woe. “From what you’ve described, the issue is that you do not see the rationale behind using a smaller attack, correct?”

“Well, yeah, that is part of it,” Ajuga confessed.

Hana looked ready to open her mouth, but Harribel shot the girl a quick look that seemed to warn Hana to stay silent, so she closed it again. Ajuga gave the Espada a look of confusion and Harribel sighed, setting her teacup down.

“Perhaps what you require is visual aid. Hana, Sung Sun, come with me for a moment.”

Both of them followed Harribel out onto a bare patch of dead winter grass and stopped close to the large pond. They nodded as they listen to Harribel’s instructions and stepped in closer together. Harribel returned to Ajuga’s side and swung her hand around, as if presenting some kind of play to the young hybrid girl.

“Imagine this, Ajuga. Your friend Hana is engaged with an enemy soldier…” Harribel began, “…or perhaps, a persistent member of the Swarm.”

Sung Sun and Hana moved closer together and grasped hands, as if they were grappling.

“Your friend takes an injury and falls to the ground, unable to move. Perhaps her injuries are such that she loses consciousness and cannot move on her own.”

“Oh, my leg, I have been mortally wounded. At such a young age too!” Hana cried out melodramatically and fell down in a heap at Sung Sun’s feet.

The fraccion was having a difficult time holding back her laughter and even Harribel seemed entertained for a second before she cleared her throat. The two ‘combatants’ immediately sobered up, if only for a short while.

“Now her opponent stands over her, poised to deliver the finishing blow, but you are engaged with a different opponent,” Harribel took one of her hands in a firm but gentle grip and Ajuga swallowed as those sea-green eyes bored into hers.

“Alas, prepare to be slain, foul fiend,” Sung Sun intoned in her soft voice, playing along with the drama and giggling at the end.

“I smell perfectly fine, thank you!” Hana countered from her place on the ground.

“So tell me, Ajuga-chan, how do you save her now?” Harribel asked casually, eyes never leaving the young hybrid’s face.

Ajuga tried to break the hold on her wrist, but she might as well have been trying to move a mountain. The Espada made an amused noise, as if she’d expected the girl to try to escape first.

“I told you Ajuga-chan, you are engaged and your opponent is not going to let you get past them,” Harribel reminded her. “Time is not on your side in this case either, I will add.”

Cursing in frustration, she started charging a Cero, but stopped. A Cero of this strength would hurt Hana. It might even kill her, as her Shinigami friend didn’t have a Heirro as she did. Ajuga’s aim was hardly something to brag about right now.

“I get it,” Ajuga finally admitted as she let the budding Cero flicker and die. “Why didn’t Ulquiorra just explain it like this in the first place? All he kept going on about was that I have to learn to make them smaller and gain better control. He could have saved us both the headache if he just put it down straight,” she grouched, scowling, ears flattened.

Harribel relinquished her wrist and Ajuga pulled it back instinctively. The girl got the impression that if the Third had really wanted to attack her and keep her busy while she tried to hypothetically save Hana, she would be decorating the back yard and not in a good way.

The Espada made a small noise and closed her eyes, then shook her head.

“Ulquiorra, for all that he has changed for the better these past years, is still… sparse with both his words and his instruction points. There are many ways to teach a particular lesson. It would appear you are a visual learner, rather than one who sticks to theory.”

“Can I get up now?” Hana asked from her spot on the lawn. Harribel nodded and motioned for them to return to the table. Sung Sun helped the girl up. As they got comfortable again, the girl announced, “Well, now that Ajuga-chan’s fur is no longer in a tangle, I have my own issue to bring up.”

“Are there more rumours spreading around about you getting it on with Toshiro and that’s why you spend so much time in his office and at his house?” Ajuga asked curiously, her tone teasing.

Hana glared at her.

“Yes, that stupidity is still going on, but that’s not what I was going to say,” the girl sighed. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and, Harribel-sama, we’ve gotten to know each other well over the last month, so, if you feel like you can stand having me around, I would like to officially accept a position as one of your fraccion,” Hana declared with a small, nervous smile.

“It is done then,” Harribel declared and took a sip of her tea. Sung Sun greeted her new companion with no small amount of delight in her eyes.

“Welcome! It will be nice to have someone calmer around and capable of holding a conversation without resorting to screaming!”

“As we agreed upon earlier, I do not expect you to change your schedule. However, as one of my fraccion you may be required to attend some meetings and to accompany me into battle. As Toshiro is your Taichou, and he is mine, that should not be an issue.”

Hana nodded her head in understanding.

“Have you considered my offer, Ajuga?” Harribel asked the other girl at the table. Ajuga sighed and scratched the back of her neck.

“Sorry, I like my independence, when my father isn’t riding me.”

“Funny, how ‘Papa’ became ‘Father’ just because she got into trouble,” Hana remarked to Sung Sun, who giggled.

“Shove it,” Ajuga shot back. “Or I’ll tell Szay that you decided to volunteer for that Shinigami vs. Hollow Virus sample experiment he tried to convince us to undergo after all.”

“He couldn’t do it even if we volunteered,” Hana retorted, and rolled her eyes at the threat. “You know Szay has strict orders not to do anything like that.”

“Oh I am sure Szay could find a way around his orders. He’s good at that.”

“I am not so sure. Your mother ordered him to adhere to the Code of Ethics, and Unohana-Taichou wrote that book,” Hana replied smugly.

“Huh, that’s true,” Ajuga relented. “He certainly snarked about it enough when Mama gave him the order to follow it as it was written, with none of his ‘well I interpreted it this way’ nonsense.”

“I must admit, it took almost all of us by surprise when Szayel-sama announced that he was now Karin’s pet,” Sung Sun acknowledged.

They spent the rest of the afternoon eating treats, drinking tea, and chatting. Mila Rose and Apache returned at one point and joined them. There wasn’t an actual garden, but somehow the event reminded Ajuga of sitting on the porch in one of the Kuchiki Estate gardens with Byakuya while he showed her a different Kanji. She hadn’t seen him since his release from the 4th Division.

She made a mental note to try and find the time to see how he was recovering, assuming, of course, that she could weasel in a few minutes to herself. She had only managed to snag this free time because she had promised not to leave Hana’s side and because her father knew that Harribel wouldn’t entertain nonsense.

 _Stupid Father! Mama has him totally leashed and collared,_ she grumbled to herself. _The only way I am going to get out of this mess is to, ugh, apologize to Mama for goading Diaemus on._

Ggio winced in pain as he slowly lowered himself into the hot spring Yumichika had shown him hidden in the back of the estate. His rear smarted and he was definitely going to have bruises come morning. It would seem a new fetish was quickly spreading and he had no idea where Barragan had suddenly gotten these new sexual ideas, although the trail seemed to lead squarely to Yammy Llargo as the culprit. The Espada had decked his pet out in leather, straps and Kami only knew what other insane devices. When had Barragan taken a sudden interest in this thing called ‘poker’ anyhow? Yumichika at least knew the game and had been able to teach him at the last minute when they had been summoned to attend the game Barragan hosted.

“Itai!” he hissed as the water reached the claw marks on his lower back from Barragan’s nails. He forced himself to keep going until he was up to his neck in the hot water, regardless of how much his shredded shoulders and back felt.

 _At least after Aizen-Kami_ _’_ _s little demonstration with Yammy-sama about what he did to people who put the warriors under their control out of commission, Barragan-sama has been less brutal with me,_ he sighed.

After word of that had gotten around a lot of Arrancar were suddenly treating their pets a bit more delicately, not that the cases of abuse were as rampant as they had once been. When word had gone out that it was possible to breed outside of their own race, the first fallout had been a large number of the Shinigami slaves spending a hell of a lot more time on their hands and knees (only mates had sex face to face or, very rarely, if there was mutual agreement). When word spread that stress more or less held the key to success, well, suddenly there were a lot less pets limping around and several suddenly found themselves with doting Masters. The poor Shinigami slaves had no idea why things had changed and why their Masters had suddenly gone from sexually driven abusers to gentle owners. Not all cases ended this way of course, some were still just as cruel to their pets as before, but after that display with Yammy even they had curbed their hands a bit.

“I have to admit, there was _almost_ something erotic about that display,” Yumichika chuckled as the former Shinigami shed his elaborate robs and joined him in the hot spring.

“There was _nothing_ erotic about it,” Ggio sulked as he rested against the edge of the pool, stomach first to keep his wounded back and smarting rear pressure free. “How do you handle this so easily, Yumichika?” he asked softly.

“Experience and training,” Yumichika replied, after a minute or two of hesitation.

Ggio flinched as he felt a damp cloth touch the edge of one of the claw marks on his back, but held still as Yumichika tended to them. He couldn’t help but wonder if the others who had once been Barragan’s attendants, his former fellow fraccion, had done the same for each other. It was still a little hard to swallow, to understand and realize that they had kept him safe over the years, and it hurt to think that he had resented them for it. He wished he had a chance to apologize to them, but that was impossible, as they were all dead, all but him.

“It may sound cruel and selfish, but I am glad you’re here Yumichika,” he sighed. “I don’t think I could handle this alone, and I don’t think anyone else would be able to handle it the way you are.”

Yumichika sighed and sat down beside him, tipping his head back so he could gaze up at the stars. Unlike Ggio, he hadn’t spent any time lying across Barragan’s lap while the Espada took great pleasure in beating (Yumichika would hardly call it a spanking) his pet’s rear until it was bright cherry red. He was already beginning to bruise from it.

“I understand what you are trying to say,” the Shinigami assured him.

Silence settled between them for a moment, broken only by the sound of the water moving around them and the light rustle of the breeze in the bare branches overhead.

“I thought I would never find myself in a position like this again. I thought I had escaped this shit when I met Ikakku,” Yumichika said quietly and Ggio caught the slight catch of emotion in his companion’s usually controlled voice.

Loud rustling alerted them to the presence of a newcomer to their private retreat, both of them going tense until the intruder stepped into the moonlit little clearing. Then they relaxed as Soi Fon joined them. Unable to speak, she had deliberately made noise to let them know of her presence before just stepping out into the clearing. It was unwise to startled highly trained warriors, even if both of their Zanpakuto were back in their respective rooms.

“Soi Fon,” Yumichika greeted her with a smile.

She gave him a nod of her head in greeting before settling down at the edge of the pool beside Ggio, reaching a hand out to rest on one of his. No one felt uncomfortable with the nudity; they had all been broken of that long ago. Each of them knew the other’s body intimately. Barragan had made certain of that, although The Second had never forced Yumichika to sleep with Soi Fon.

Ggio answered her unspoken question.

“I am fine. How are you feeling?” he asked, far more concerned with her wellbeing.

She carried his first, and if Barragan had anything to say about it, only child and worry for her safety and health had become his constant companion.

She patted his hand and gave him a small smile, indicating she was fine. She was really showing now and was easily halfway through her pregnancy. In fact, Szayel predicted her term would run even shorter than Karin’s pregnancy had, although not by too much.

“You should not be out in this cold weather, especially wearing only that,” he admonished.

She was wearing the simple, plain white yukata Barragan had ordered her to remain in as well as a scarf, a gift from Ggio ages ago. She didn’t wear it very often and if Yumichika were to pick a point where Barragan began to notice his fraccion’s attention wavering, it would be the moment the Espada had noticed her wearing it. The Second had summoned them to serve him right after a long and tedious meeting and she hadn’t had a chance to put it away. That had been an unpleasant evening, especially for Ggio when he had been the one to confess giving it to her. It was one of the more violent times Barragan had used him to punish his fraccion.

“If it’s not prying, could you tell me what it was like living out there?” Ggio asked.

Yumichika sighed and closed his eyes. Ggio kept quiet and Soi Fon sat still as they watched him. No doubt, she was curious too. He supposed her ability to listen was a holdover from once leading an organization whose entire purpose was the gathering of information and assassination.

“It was hell. Those with the power took what they wanted, those who didn’t have it found different ways to survive. They became slaves to those that had it, or died in many brutal ways. I am not talking about physical power either. Much of the ‘power’ out there took the form of water, food, and money. Strength was definitely an asset, but the ones with the real power were those that had control over the resources.”

“I don’t remember if I was born here or if I passed over when I was younger. A group did take me in, but nothing is free in the 79th District. Everyone had to earn his or her keep. When I was old enough, they trained me as a prostitute. They said I had the beauty to get the good clients, the ones that paid well and were not too rough. They showed me everything I would need to know to please a woman, and everything I would need to know to please a man as there really were not that many powerful women out there.”

“Confidence was key, a false front to let everyone know I was not some cheap two-bit whore, but out there, without formal martial training, that didn’t always work. There were times when I knew that I was cornered, and the only defence I had was bowing my head and spreading my legs, hoping the damage wouldn’t be bad when it was over, to grit my teeth and bear with it.

“It was during one such encounter that I met Ikakku.”

Yumichika couldn’t help but grin at the memory. “He actually thought I was a girl and that he was saving some street tart, hopefully one that would repay the favour with a meal and a romp. I offered him both, naturally, but he firmly informed me he wasn’t into screwing men, even one that was as pretty as I was. He enjoyed the food though. We crossed paths several times over the years after that, mostly because he knew I’d serve him a decent meal. There were a few times that he stepped in when someone thought he could just take what he wanted from me. It was after another such altercation like that that he commented, and I quote ‘not that I don’t like getting a free meal out of your pretty ass, but why the hell ain’t you putting these pieces of trash down yourself?’

“I informed him I had no combat training, he decided to fix that. Before long, I had no time to work, as he set a strong training regimen. Instead of wandering the streets whoring myself out, I ended up following him, learning how to stand up and defend myself, tending to his wounds and all the while making sure our meals were edible. Ikakku was a dreadful cook…” he laughed quietly. “He would have expired from eating his own meals if I hadn’t come along.”

Soi Fon pulled out her chalkboard and wrote out a message before turning it around so they could read it.

‘Is that why you are so obsessed with beauty, because it became a weapon and a defence for you out there?’

“That’s one reason,” he agreed. “But truly, when one is as gorgeous as I am, would it not be a crime to let it go to waste?” he asked and fluttered his lashes at her.

Soi Fon rolled her eyes and bopped him over the head with her chalkboard while Ggio shook his head. This was definitely better, much more enjoyable than the old days where he had held his two fellow suffering comrades in contempt and viewed them as beneath him. He had even taunted Soi Fon for a while; their battle contained a healthy dose of egotism on both parts. Now, they shared some common bonds, one beaten into them from the Master they served and the other...

Soi Fon suddenly froze and then grasped each of their hands and pulled them to rest on her swelling stomach. It took another moment, but there was definitely a flutter of movement. Yumichika all but cooed at her belly and Ggio gasped.

That was his cub, his offspring. He felt a fierce wellspring of protectiveness rise up in him, followed quickly by despair. Barragan had made it clear he had no plans on keeping the cub, of seeing to its demise. Their master was doing everything he could to get around Aizen’s orders to see to it the cub was never born. They had taken to smuggling food in for her to make sure that she kept her strength up as the staff had been ordered that she was not to be fed from the Estate’s pantry. Soi Fon had no money of her own, what little she had managed to salvage from her slavery had long since been spent in the last fifteen years.

He had to do something to protect his cub, to see to its survival. Maybe he could get one of the others to care for it. Soi Fon had mentioned that several of the other Espada had seemed sickened by Barragan’s callous disregard for the unborn child during the recent Claim meeting. However, who could he ask, who did he dare approach for help, should he manage to suppress his instincts long enough when it was born to let it go? It wasn’t as if he could just walk up to one of the other Espada and beg them for assistance. If he was seen talking to them, Barragan would probably figure out he had something planned. After all, what reason would a mere fraccion have to speak to an Espada he didn’t serve?

His cub would need a stable place to live, somewhere where it will be safe and not instantly Claimed for future breeding purposes, especially if it was female. Whom could he possibly trust who would understand the trials and tribulations of a naturally born Hollow and who would have no interest in taking his child as a potential mate?

“Well, we should probably get out before we all look like prunes,” Yumichika sighed, rising from the water and accepting the towel Soi Fon handed him.

“Yeah,” Ggio agreed, standing as well and watching as the water flowed down his smooth chest and stomach, something only five other Hollows he could think of had; Nnoitra, Szayel, Nelliel, Harribel and Tesra. Three Espada, one former Espada who was gone for good and one…

Ggio froze. He had completely forgotten about his fellow, _mated_ fraccion. He racked his brain, trying to think if Tesra’s hole was in an odd spot before concluding, thanks to having seen him in his Resurrección once, that he didn’t have one, or at least, not a noticeable one. Harribel was like that, as was Szayel, but clothing might obscure Szayel’s hole. There wasn’t enough clothing on the Third’s body in her Resurrección form, but that didn’t necessarily mean she was naturally born either. If Tesra didn’t have one, then were the stories true? Was Tesra the same as he? There was a chance. He also had a mate. Tesra wasn’t ‘mated’ in the traditional sense but she _was_ human and therefore would be no threat to his cub. In fact, from what he had observed, she was completely comfortable with Ajuga and Diaemus, even protective of them.

“What is it?” Yumichika asked. The Shinigami seemed concerned with his silence and the fact he hadn’t moved from the hot spring.

“Nothing, but possibly everything,” he answered as he numbly accepted a towel from Soi Fon. “I need to think about this, and I don’t want to get our hopes up, but…” he paused to smile at them, “I may have just thought of a safe place to put the cub when it’s born.”

Both of them looked at him expectantly, and he hoped that this would work, that everything would fall into place. Tesra was a fraccion; he belonged to Nnoitra, which meant anything Tesra owned also belonged to Nnoitra. Aizen forbade his Espada from interfering with each other’s fraccion. If he could get the cub to Tesra and his mate before Barragan could get to it, and they agreed to adopt the cub (a rare, but not unheard of arrangement) then the cub would be safe, at least for a while.

Ggio walked quickly down the streets, tracking the reiatsu he had latched onto. It wasn’t hard, for it would seem his target wasn’t moving. He hit one snag, however, when he realized that his target was at his Master’s house. He envied Tesra, having a den of his own. Barragan forbade it, wanting his toys and servants close at hand. Nnoitra was far more independent. It didn’t seem like Nnoitra was there presently, but he did not want word getting around that he had been seen at the Fifth’s home, nor did he want to aggravate the notoriously short-tempered Espada by intruding on his property.

Cursing to himself, he carried on past the place, not even slowing down. He hoped that his target wouldn’t be there too long, as he had to be back by evening so he could bend over and take it up the rear, probably unprepared again, so his Majesty would be pleased. He regretted his blind loyalty to the so-called ‘King’ now and wished he had better studied the Espada who had propositioned him before foolishly agreeing to the post. It wasn’t as if he’d had much choice in the matter. When an Espada walked up to you and declared you theirs, the matter tended to settle in their favour.

He almost sighed in relief when he felt Tesra and his mate leave the Fifth’s house. Ggio discreetly followed them down the street and to their den. He had to hurry to catch up to them as they reached the stone fence that surrounded the house’s yard.

“Tesra, may I please speak to you?” he called out, before they could disappear and he lost his chance.

The other Arrancar and his mate, whose name he couldn’t recall, stopped and turned to look at him. Tesra appeared confused and by her body language, the human woman seemed apprehensive about his presence.

“Of course, Vega-san, what is it?” Tesra asked.

“I would… rather not talk about it out here.”

The Fifth’s fraccion stood there for a moment, as if he were considering whether to allow Ggio into his den, before inviting him in. The house was small, with only one bedroom, but it was very clean and quaint. Something about it, maybe its simplicity, helped to settle Ggio’s nerves. Tesra led him into the small combined kitchen and dining room. He and the woman sat at the table while Tesra went about making a pot of tea.

“I don’t think we have ever been formally introduced, despite having seen each other around. I am Tatsuki Lindocruz,” Tesra’s mate said, by way of introduction. He was not surprised to discover she had adapted her Mate’s name, which confirmed to him that the two were a fully Mated couple, even if no Mating Claim existed between them.

“Ggio Vega,” he returned the greeting.

“It is a pleasure to meet you.”

Tatsuki paused and then pushed her chair back, as if to get up.

“I can tell something is bothering you, and while Tesra and I keep no secrets from each other, especially ones that involve us both, if it will make you more comfortable I can always go visit Karin-chan or Orihime-chan for a while,” she offered. “I will not be offended if you want to kick me out.”

“No, that’s alright,” he found himself saying before he had time to think about it. Her offer and insight truly surprised him.

The friendship he had formed with Yumichika and the (dare he think it) love he shared with Soi Fon had beaten any feelings of racial superiority out of him. Besides, this would affect her and he wanted to get a read on the woman in whose care he hoped he could leave his cub.

Tesra set the teapot and three cups down before joining them.

“What is it Ggio? It is not like you to seek me out,” Tesra asked.

“I know. I…”

He had rehearsed so many speeches, thought up a dozen different ways to bring about such a delicate subject, and all of them sounded either stupid or offensive. “Forgive my bluntness and rudeness here, but I need to know, before going any further with my request…” Ggio took a deep breath, and took a gamble. “Are you, like me, a naturally-born Hollow, Tesra?”

Tesra stared at him in shock, perhaps not so much at the question, but at Ggio’s revelation. Tatsuki raised an eyebrow, but said nothing as her mate struggled to decide how to answer such a personal and sensitive question.

“Yes,” Tesra hesitantly admitted. “But I fail to see why that would be of interest to you, or even Barragan-sama for that matter. He cannot move against me, not as long as I belong to Nnoitra-sama. Unless…. is Barragan-sama threatening Nnoitra-sama?”

Tesra’s eyes narrowed dangerously.

“No,” Ggio was quick to assure him. “This has nothing to do with Barragan-sama… well, it sort of does. Damn it…” Ggio hissed, cradling his mug of hot tea in his hand and staring at it as he desperately tried to get his jumbled thoughts back in order. This was definitely not going how he had visualized it.

A hand suddenly covered his trembling ones and he looked up at Tesra’s mate in surprise. Unlike Tesra, she seemed less agitated, and that took skill. Of course, the only thing that _could_ rile Tesra up was anything to do with Nnoitra-sama, especially if it was a threat.

“Ggio, what is it you are here for?” she asked with a warm, encouraging smile.

“I was hoping…” and here he felt the tears prick his eyes and viscously tried to blink them back.

“Hoping?” Tatsuki pressed him, trying to get him to finish his sentence.

“My cub, Barragan doesn’t want us to keep it…. has threatened to kill it once it is born and determined to be of no use to Aizen-Kami. He‘s been trying to force Soi Fon to miscarry in any way he can that doesn’t directly disobey Kami-sama.”

The mug in his hand cracked as he clenched it tightly. The very idea that his cub was threatened set his hackles up. Unfortunately, he could do to nothing to stop it. It left him feeling like a captive lion, trapped in a space so small the bars of his cage rubbed against his skin no matter which way he laid.

“You want us to adopt your cub?” Tesra guessed, leaning forward.

Unable to speak, Ggio nodded his head. It was no easy task, offering up his offspring to another couple. The very idea made him bristle, but at least it would be alive and he would be able to see it from time to time. It would be safe and he could tell that these two would care for it in a loving manner.

“Tatsuki?”

The human woman sighed as she got up from the table, went to one of the cupboards and pulled down another cup. Bringing it back with her, she proceeded to pour a second cup of tea for Ggio, carefully taking the one he’d inadvertently cracked and putting it to the side.

“This whole issue has been eating at a lot of people,” Tatsuki admitted, running a finger around the lip of her own cup. “Karin, Orihime, even their mates are sickened over Barragan’s reaction to this whole thing, and if something angers Ulquiorra enough for him to mention something about it, then it’s pretty bad. I see no reason why we couldn’t take the cub into our protection. Doing so would relieve a lot of people and he or she wouldn’t lack for protectors.”

To Ggio’s mind, her last statement lent some credence to the stories going around about the loose coalition of Espada that seemed to be taking shape, with Starrk and Grimmjow’s combined household at the center of it all. The odd connections between the formerly isolated households seemed to hinge upon the human women, especially Karin. She owned Szayel and therefore, his small pack of a mate and his two children, plus the tall, inked warrior he’d met four years ago as well. She and Ulquiorra’s mate seemed close too. Now it appeared the developing group could draw in Harribel and her girls, as observers had seen Karin’s daughter Ajuga and her friend visiting the Third Espada’s home of late. What that was about he couldn’t really guess, but Harribel had even more power at her disposal than Ulquiorra, with a Claimed Taichou and the Trés Bestias.

Tesra himself still belonged to Nnoitra and he and his mate comprised half of the Fifth’s pack, but Tatsuki was also a _de facto_ member of Karin’s group of human and Shinigami females, and could petition them for help if needed. Ggio knew that Nnoitra wouldn’t care too much about the cub or show a lot of interest in it, since he evidently hadn’t done anything to Tesra over the years. He hadn’t forced his fraccion to start pumping out cubs with his mate in hopes of producing a potential female to take for himself either. His child would be safe, or as safe as any place could be, in such a large and powerful pack.

Ggio, lost in thought, missed the looks going back and forth a few feet away, as Tesra and his mate had some kind of unspoken exchange going on between them, one that started out with a great deal of uncertainty and ended up with matching expressions of agreement.

“Vega-san?”

Ggio looked up at his fellow fraccion, not realizing he’d begun to chew on his thumbnail while he spoke. He’d nearly bitten it to the quick. Tesra’s mate nudged the sandy-haired Arrancar’s cup with hers and gave him a reassuring ‘well, go on’ motion of her chin.

“If you can find a way to get the cub to us, we will take it in,” Tesra confirmed.

It was far more than Ggio expected, with none of the hesitation he’d feared. Tesra hadn’t even brought up the Espada he served and he wondered about the degree of freedom the Fifth granted his follower. Evidently, a den and a mate wasn’t the extent of it. Still, it was a promising start and the rush of gratitude nearly overwhelming. He bowed his head in Tesra’s direction.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Tesra sighed and frowned. “First, the cub has to be safely born and transferred to us before Barragan-sama can get to it to make a Claim… or…”

_…_ _or destroy it._

Ggio would do everything within his limited power to do just that.

“Of course! Just knowing there is some hope… you’re right, it’s a huge relief.”

“Who knows?” Tatsuki chuckled, turning her cup around in her hands and then taking a sip of the fragrant contents. “Maybe _we_ will get lucky soon and he or she will have a playmate!”

“Let’s hope so,” Tesra replied and smiled lovingly at his mate, his expression brightening.

Ggio could only pray he was right about this. Against all odds, he had taken a chance and thankfully, found an adoptive home for his cub. Now all they had to do was survive until the cub was born, then get the child to its adoptive family. He desperately hoped everything would go according to his hastily-put-together plan.


	20. Emotional Termoil

Karin didn’t mind fighting. She didn’t mind commanding troops, even though it was painful to see the people who had come to rely on her get hurt, or worse, killed. She definitely didn’t mind the after-battle mauling Grimmjow always gave her, her core heating up just thinking about the feeling of his body thrusting into her and knowing that she could turn that powerful beast into a mewling kitten. No, what bothered her was the disgusting coating of bug guts covering her, head-to-toe.

Using close combat strategies and fighting techniques, her specialty, resulted in a spray of gore and slime with each cracked and shattered carapace. A lot of it ended up on her. She almost envied the Rukongai militia; those units spent most of these battles manning catapults and ballista, although right now she was tempting to force Szayel to take a trip to the Living World and order him to pick up a few books on things like tanks and rail guns. They would be a much more efficient form of weapon, and far more devastating to the Swarm. Unfortunately, they would also be prime targets for theft. She did not want to think about how much worse Soul Society would become if the citizenry and the ex-Shinigami hiding amongst them got their hands on a few guns, magazines and bombs. Civil war was the last thing they needed right now.

_Still, something automatic with big shells to deal with the damn Swarm would be a nice addition to our arsenal. I wonder if flamethrowers would work_ _…_

Kido definitely seemed to work, at least on the Locusts, and many of the battlefields took on the aroma of burnt and roasting chicken by the time they’d finished. Karin didn’t like to think how the smell both repulsed her and managed to make her hungry after hours of fighting.

A loud hissing noise suddenly broke Karin out of her thoughts as she stared up at a large beetle lumbering her way. It paused and shot out a stream of its corrosive acid. Those that failed at moving fast enough screamed and died horribly as the stuff ate through them. The ground steamed and sizzled where it landed. Those caught by the tail of the attack were held down and any affected limbs were removed before the acid could eat its way to a vital part of their bodies. It was a small price to pay for their lives and, if they were lucky, Orihime would be able to replace the missing limbs. Those that got the acid on their torso were given a quick, merciful death to spare them the agony of being eaten alive. That acid was so strong that not even Ulquiorra’s impressive, high-speed regeneration couldn’t fully nullify it, and they had learned that the hard way.

Karin cursed, her blood surging, as she launched into a Shunpo and appeared above the beetle’s head. Merging a large amount of her reiatsu into her fist, she slammed it down upon the juncture where the beetles head met its thorax. The joint shattered under her blow and she grabbed onto the shell as it began to thrash. Thrusting her hand through the break, she fired off bolt after lightning bolt of Kido into the creature’s inner workings until it started to roll over and go into death throes.

She launched herself away, cursing as one of the sharp spikes on the flailing thing’s leg caught her on the thigh and tore a long, bone-deep gash through her muscle, leaving her leg a bloody mess.

“FUCKING, KAMI, DAMNED, PISS OF SHIT!” she roared as both pain and blood shot down her leg.

She could see down through the cleaved muscle to the yellow bone. Worse, the cut had gone _into_ the bone itself. It hurt like a bloody bitch! She forced herself to concentrate on the pain numbing Kido Unohana had taught her, her body sweating profusely with the strain of dealing with the agony.

“At least the slice is clean,” she gritted out through clenched teeth before adding a few choice words she had learned from her mate.

Any distraction during a battle could be the death of a warrior, and Karin was distracted. Her concentration was completely broken and the pain flared back as a Locust came right through the tree she leaned against, pinning her to the ground with mandibles moving at an alarming rate, centimetres from her face. Worse, the tree had landed on her slashed leg, effectively pinning her in place.

Her vision went splotchy as the pain overrode her and she fought against unconsciousness. The damn thing’s antennas were running all over her body and she let out a small cry of pain as the thing’s mandibles nipped her arm, tasting her blood.

 _Fuck_ , she thought blurrily as her assailant suddenly buzzed.

Like a stirred hornets’ nest, the Locusts suddenly began to ‘swarm’ about them, chitterling loudly and instantly blocking her off from the rest of her forces. Then it seemed as if the entire Swarm converged on her location.

The jaws that had nipped her skin lodged into the tree pinning her, as did the mandibles of a dozen other locust as they moved the tree off of her leg. The one who held her adjusted its grip until it clutched her tightly to its abdomen with four of its six legs and took off, moving slowly with its heavy burden.

Karin panicked. It was the all she could manage while barely conscious and pain-ridden. She focused what little mental control she had left onto the Claim she shared with her mate, screaming at him for help. He was so far away though, almost on the other end of the battlefield. Meanwhile, the Swarm buzzed around her in a formation much like a thick ball, using their bodies to protect the bundle in the centre. She could feel Grimmjow racing towards her, but now others were grabbing the one carrying her and increasing the speed in which they traveled as they distributed her weight between them.

Two unexpected explosions left her ears ringing as her entire world suddenly lit up with repetitive red flashes of light. Her vision went black and then abruptly came back accompanied by ringing ears, a migraine, and an increase in the amount of pain in her leg.

Then she fell. The smell of burning insect corpses surrounded her for a moment, until her body plummeted past the stench, heading for the ground.

Something literally snatched her as she tumbled and the resulting disorientation made her stomach flip-flop, the upside-down landscape blurring for a brief moment. She wasn’t certain how much of that was due to the speed they were traveling or from her injuries. Her rescuer eventually set her as gently on the ground as possible, standing over her protectively. Karin thought she saw a long spear of green light twirling in the person’s hands as it fought off the insects trying to get to her. She could hear her mate’s infuriated howls somewhere nearby, followed by the sound of raging explosions and the blood-curdling screams as the bugs died.

At first, she thought the one to catch her was Ulquiorra, as she couldn’t think of any other Arrancar that had wings, but even with blurry vision, she could tell that the one to have caught her had a halo of long, coppery hair, not black. Another blur, this one almost all white with black hair, joined the other.

“Karin-sama!” a little, feminine voice cried, and she felt small hands quickly latch onto the profusely bleeding wound in her leg, trying to stem the blood flow.

If the blurry white figure hadn’t been enough to force Karin back into reality, the call of such a young child definitely did. The Swarm was still buzzing about them, but a sudden deluge of power forced them slowly back. Hovering in such a large, compact formation just made them easier to kill. The air swiftly chilled as a wave of water crashed passed them, chased by a blast of cold that froze everything caught in it. For the moment, they were in the clear, but she could still hear her mate roaring furiously, not too far away alongside the sound of battle.

Calming her breathing down, she focused first on the two standing over her worriedly. Fear was the first emotion that gripped her, followed by anger.

“Ajuga and Diaemus!” Karin snapped. “What the hell do you two think you are doing here?”

Ajuga looked at her in surprise while Diaemus suddenly looked like he wanted to be somewhere else.

“Saving you Mama,” Ajuga answered, seemingly puzzled by her mother’s anger.

Karin forced herself to sit gritting her teeth in agony in her leg slowly became numb thanks to the cream that a third person rubbed onto it. She was so furious right now that the pain soon took a back seat. The adrenaline in her system caused by her near kidnapping didn’t help the issue either.

“I ordered you to stay and guard the Research Centre when the battle started. _You_ I can understand being incapable of following orders, Ajuga, but how do you think your father is going to feel about your blatant disregard for the chain of command, _Diaemus_?” Karin shouted.

Diaemus’ head dropped in shame, as did his wings. The spear of light in his hand dissolved and he took on the appearance of a kicked puppy.

“Why?” Ajuga cried in frustration. “We can fight better than most of the Shinigami! Why do we have to guard a stupid building that probably has more defences than the Palace? Why can’t you trust us to fight too?”

There were tears forming in the corner of her daughter’s eyes. “Do you think me so _weak_ mother?”

“I expect you to follow orders, especially during a battle, just like everyone else does, even your father. You could have been killed! And while I _might_ have understood and accepted your desire to act like an immature child and sneak off to join the battle, WHAT THE FUCK POSSESSED YOU TO BRING VINDULA WITH YOU **?!** **”** Karin roared.

Vindula, Szayel’s daughter, who was tending to her leg the best she could, cringed and instantly looked guilty. Ajuga took a step back herself and her gaze darted to the little Arrancar girl sitting beside her mother.

Karin wanted to scream at her daughter for putting herself in danger, especially with the Swarm in such a frenzied state. However, she put that part of her anger and fear on the back burner for now as none of the three knew about the vulnerability mother and daughter shared. Instead, she let her ire regarding Vindula boil over.

“What if something had happened to her? She has no combat experience! Would you like to go up to Szayel and tell him you killed his daughter with your incompetence? Did you want to deliver her dead, blood-soaked body to Nemu? To explain to Renji why his charge was no longer breathing, to inform Abisara that his sister is dead and gone? Well, do you?!?” the woman raged, fingers digging into the dirt below her.

“I am sorry Mama,” Ajuga whispered before disappearing into a Sonido, tears streaming down the side of her face.

Karin kept an eye on her just to make sure that Ajuga returned to the city, and not someplace dangerous. Then she turned her furious gaze towards the boy, her tone as cold as the ice around them.

“Take Vindula home, Diaemus and then you can explain to Szayel how his child managed to get into the middle of a dangerous battle while I inform your father how incapable you are of following orders.”

“Yes, Karin-sama,” he mouthed brokenly.

Vindula had remained silent the entire time, her shoulders shaking softly as she sobbed and scrubbed at her eyes. Oh, how Karin wanted to yell at her too, but she forced her mouth closed for now. The little girl was feeling miserable enough and didn’t know better. No doubt her father would deal with her when he found out about this. She didn’t want to know what Renji would do. If Szayel were smart, he’d tie down anything breakable.

“Come on Vindula,” Diaemus held out a hand to the little girl.

“We just wanted to help,” Vindula whispered so quietly Karin almost didn’t hear her.

It tore at her, it truly did. It reminded her of a time when she had watched her older brother run off to fight, leaving her behind and feeding her lies about what was truly going on. She had wanted to help too, but she had known that all she would have done was to get in Ichigo’s way. She forced the stern expression to remain for as long as it took the two to leave, Diaemus simply disappearing from her sight as he moved at speeds that rivalled Starrk in order to get the little girl back to safety.

The ice around her suddenly shattered as Toshiro released his grip on it, filling the air with trillions of ice particles and chilling it completely. Her entire body trembled, and it wasn’t from the chilled air either.

Karin lost track of the number of emotions racing through her, from terror to fear, that she felt like she was losing her mind. The Swarm had almost taken her. Her daughter had foolishly put herself in harm’s way to prevent that from happening. If the Swarm hadn’t suddenly gone into a defensive ball and changed their tactics, they might have found out about her daughter. She might have even been able to handle that stress. After all, her daughter’s Heirro was very strong and the likelihood of it was slim, but they had brought Vindula with them, delicate, beautiful little Vindula who had no idea how to defend herself! How could they do that?

She shook with rising, unchecked hysteria and blood loss and was in the process of losing her fight with blood loss when her mate finally caught up to her.

The majority of the latest wave of the Swarm was nothing more than a growing pile of shell and wing fragments on the forest floor, leaving the pickings slim. Karin bombarded him with such a dizzying mixture of terror and rage that it left him blindsided. He’d felt nothing like this from her in a very long time. Their Claim let him know she was stationary so she must have escaped from whatever had sent her into the initial, frenzied panic. He didn’t think too much of the raging emotions, attributing the anger to nearly being captured.

“Are you alright?” Grimmjow demanded as he appeared before her, kneeling down until they were nearly level.

His eyes instantly fell to the sizeable gash in her leg as she turned tear-filled eyes up at him. The intensity almost made him take a step back. The only other time he had seen his mate this close to openly bawling, to having a complete meltdown, was after Ichigo’s first incursion back into Soul Society, when she had coldly told her brother to leave. The time he had to rescue Szayel from Aizen came in a close second.

Something similarly trauma-inducing had Karin ready to snap, by the way she suddenly flung herself into his arms, not in the least bit disturbed by the fact they were both wearing more ichor than clothing, as his Resurrección really didn’t have clothes and hers had been shredded during the battle.

“Karin?” he called, starting to feel a bit of panic himself since his mate was so distraught and something truly awful had to have happened for her to lose her normal control this way.

Slowly, she managed to choke out the whole story while he put direct pressure on the wound, to try to slow the bleeding. Grimmjow was impressed with her for taking out the beetle and felt a large swelling of pride. He was even a little bit pleased when he heard of how Ajuga and Diaemus had saved her, although he did share her anxiety over their daughter’s safety. Even though he hated following orders himself, he understood how important they were in such a large battle. What little understanding he did feel towards his daughter died when he found out that, against all reason, they’d let Vindula tag along.

Vindula was not a hunter and had no weapons with which to defend herself as Ajuga and Diaemus had. He might not have cared in the past what happened to another’s cub, but this was Szayel’s child, the same Espada who had gone through hell and back for the protection of his own daughter and if Grimmjow was sure of one thing, he knew he paid his debts in kind, whatever form they might take.

“We need to get you to the 4th Division. I will speak to Ajuga about this,” he promised.

Karin nodded weakly as he picked her up, mindful of the nasty gash in her leg. She felt she was lucky in that she hadn’t lost the entire limb. Her body trembled from exhaustion and blood loss and the understandable freak-out from the near carting-off. She was unconscious by the time he got her into the hands of one of Unohana-Taichou’s subordinates and set her on a stretcher. With his mate now safe and in the hands of professionals, Grimmjow made for their rooms on the Estate, with the intent of finding his child. If he knew his kid, Ajuga would be hiding her reiatsu and the only way to find her when she decided to head completely into the proverbial underbrush was with Karin’s sight or with the tracking device in her bracelet. The Sixth kept a locator bracelet in his room for just that purpose.

Reaching the Estate, he went to his dresser and pulled out the tracking device, turning it on. Looking at the beeping icon he sighed, eyes narrowing and walked across the hall to his daughter’s room. Once there he glared at the innocent piece of silver sitting on the small desk beside her nest. His daughter was getting too damned clever for her own, and everyone else’s, good.

“Maybe I should get Szayel to infest her with some of those bugs of his,” he grumbled aloud as Grimmjow started in on what he hoped wouldn’t be a fruitless search for his child. He hoped he would find her quickly but he wasn’t counting on it.

Szayel let out a sigh of relief as the door to his chambers closed behind him. It had been a long day. All he wanted to do was collapse. He needed some shuteye desperately. His children and mate had long since gone to sleep and he looked very much forward to joining Nemu in their large bed.

A slight sniffle caused him to nearly jump out of his skin as he whirled about to face the sound. His Claim on Nemu let him know that she was sound asleep in their bedroom. He knew Abisara and Vindula lay curled up in their beds in their room because he had checked on them, pleased when their redheaded guardian had his Zanpakuto at Szayel’s throat before he had touched their door. Renji waited until Szayel was ready to lock his family into their suite for the night before retreating to his own chambers, so he knew his children’s nanny hadn’t made the noise.

He hadn’t even sensed the intruder until that little sniffle gave them away. In fact, he still couldn’t sense anything, which meant he had a small list of suspects from which to choose.

He had his suspicions, but he still walked around his couch carefully, one hand on Fornicas’ hilt and the other ready to draw a Cero. Even though his suspicions were confirmed when he finally caught sight of the interloper, his brain had a hard time registering what his eyes were showing him.

Ajuga sat curled up in the corner between his sofa and the wall, her body shaking as she cried softly. He had heard Karin had been admitted to the 4th Division. Grimmjow had reported as much during the meeting, but he doubted that such an event would have brought about such a reaction as this in Ajuga. Karin was hardly even that badly injured, compared to so many others and her prognosis for a full recovery was excellent.

 _If Ajuga has been here the whole time, no wonder Grimmjow was in such a foul mood during the meeting,_ Szayel thought to himself with sudden understanding.

There was no way Grimmjow would have thought to look for his daughter here, and even if he had, there was no way he could have gotten in pass all the security systems, or managed to get past Renji. Hell, Szayel wasn’t even sure how Ajuga had weaseled her way into his private chambers unless Nemu had let her in.

Something was clearly bothering the girl and it had to be big for her to have sought refuge here. Perhaps it had to do with what had Vindula so upset. Renji reported to him that his daughter had been red-eyed and subdued when the redhead got back from getting the bug ichor all over himself cleaned off. Her disquiet had lasted well into this evening and she would periodically start crying for no discernible reason. When he’d asked her, she had denied anything was wrong and put on a fake smile for her guardian.

“Ajuga?”

Szayel called her name out softly, not wanting to startle her and get a face full of sharp claws.

Ajuga didn’t jump at the sound of his voice, so he suspected that she knew he was there, or at least knew that he had entered the room. She didn’t immediately respond to him either. Instead, she curled up farther into the corner. If she retreated further into it, she’d be inside the wall. Assured that he wasn’t going to startle her, he relaxed his defensive stance and called her again, this time louder.

“My dear, while I love my work, I generally do not bring specimens home with me, regardless of the fact that you may be my favourite.”

She finally looked over her shoulder at him, her bright blue eyes watery and held a look of such dismay and unbearable grief that, for a brief moment, he almost thought that someone had died, maybe even Karin. No, if Karin were dead Grimmjow would have made a much bigger racket at the meeting and Szayel certainly would have known about it. Perhaps a friend had perished, one he didn’t know about. He was positive that he would have known if Hana had died and made a note to go over the casualty roster if he couldn’t pry an answer out of her.

“Ajuga, might I inquire as to why you’re soaking my carpet?”

He tried to convey as much concern as he could, while wondering if the combination of tears and bug ichor might permanently stain the upholstery of his pristine white couches and carpet.

“Mama doesn’t love me,” she sobbed.

 _Where in the Realms did that come from,_ he couldn’t help but to wonder in shock.

“And you probably hate me now too…” she added with a hiccup.

“Wherever did you ever get the idea that I hate you?”

Now this was unexpected.

“I thought you loved being my ‘Favourite Experiment.’’”

“I do,” she sniffed.

“Hmm. Ajuga, why don’t you come out of there and put on a pot of tea while I take a quick shower. Try to calm yourself and once I am back to my immaculate glory, we will sit down, and you can tell me why you think your mother and I suddenly hate you.”

She nodded reluctantly and slowly uncurled herself from the corner. Szayel watched her disappear into the kitchenette before he walked into his bedroom to procure something clean to wear. His next stop involved a hot spray of water and plenty of soap, which gave him time to consider his options. Contacting Grimmjow to let him know his daughter’s location seemed like the most reasonable course of action. Szayel was positive he now knew what had the Sexta’s tail in a knot during the meeting, but he decided that calming Ajuga down and working out the girl’s issues before tossing her stressed out, volatile father into the mix was a smarter idea. Karin was a far better mediator than he was. Without her here, things might escalate, and he simply didn’t have the energy to cope with all of that this late at night.

By the time he’d managed a quick scrubbing and emerged in a clean dressing gown, Ajuga was just setting the teapot down on the coffee table in front of the couch. She sat dejectedly on the side closest to the wall, leaving him his usual spot. The girl looked like she had managed to get her grief under control, but she would need a shower too, and his furniture would need a thorough cleaning. She’d clearly come here straight from the battlefield, if what was drying in her fur was any indication of where she’d been prior to hiding in his living quarters.

 _At least she_ _’_ _s calmer now,_ he thought positively.

He took his cup of tea and sipped it, watching as Ajuga did the same. When they were on their way to a third cup, she finally spoke, just as he knew she would.

“Mama hates me,” she murmured.

“So you said. I say ‘poppycock’ to that. You and I both know that Karin-sama loves you very much.”

“Then why do I keep getting stupid missions away from the front lines?” Ajuga demanded. “It’s like she doesn’t think I am strong enough to fight with the others now. I am not a stupid little cub anymore! I am stronger than a dozen Rukongai regiments, and yet I always get stuck sitting outside your door staring at the clouds while they get to engage the Swarm!” Ajuga seethed, lurching to her feet and pacing angrily, her tail lashing behind her.

 _Ah, so this is all about her pride. She_ _’_ _s so much like her father,_ Szayel couldn’t help but to think.

He couldn’t reveal to her the main reason for Karin taking an overprotective stance towards her daughter, namely her bloodline, but he could give her other valid reasons that should at least make Ajuga feel less ‘disrespected.’

“Ajuga, have you ever considered that it is _because_ your mother trusts you to be that strong that she assigned you and Diaemus to guard this particular building?”

“How do you come to that conclusion?” she whirled to face him as she said this, staring at him in disbelief.

Szayel took another sip of tea and sat back, giving her what he hoped was a challenging enough look. He might be her mother’s ‘pet,’ but he was still an Espada and he _would_ get through to her.

“Ponder this for a moment. As you know, we have Specimen S4-01, also known as ‘Mushi’ thanks to your mother, a Portal Bug, stashed in the basement of this facility. We have not yet determined the range of the Swarm’s ability to communicate with one another.”

To make his point, the Seventh set his teacup down and steepled his fingers together, looking intently at her over them with tired golden eyes.

“What would happen if Mushi telepathically sent a message about his location to the Swarm? What might occur here if they tried to break him out?”

“Could they?” Ajuga challenged, but he could tell she was at least mulling over the idea.

“The acid from Specimens S2 would easily chew through my defences. The servants in my building are not warriors. They are researchers and scientists, Kido specialists and other assorted data jockeys. We do know the Portal Bugs are the ones bringing in the Swarm, but how do they get here? What if a group slipped around and came at us from the rear and brought a second Portal Scarab, creating a matched set and the two of them opened a portal directly into the city?”

He could tell that Ajuga was really thinking about it now. Her tail was still switching, but not as violently as it had been and she wasn’t pacing like a caged tiger.

“So you are saying that Mama is ordering Diaemus-kun and I to guard the back lines because she think we can hold them long enough for a warning to get off?”

_Finally, she begins to understand._

“I believe that is one of many reasons. Try to think as a commander would. Where would you put your resources, if you were your mother? As you pointed out, you are far stronger than several of the Rukongai militias. You are faster and able to patrol a far larger area. Between yourself and Diaemus, your airborne counterpart, the two of you are a far better and more effective set of eyes and ears as far as keeping this facility intact. In addition, having two that can hold an entire sector is far more efficient than sending several regiments to do the same thing.”

Ajuga sat down once more and took a sip of her tea. Szayel could tell that the idea was truly starting to work its way into her brain. He understood Karin’s fear of course, but he also understood Ajuga’s need to prove herself.

“I would also have you consider this bit of information. If the Science Division falls to the Swarm or any other form of sabotage, the entire control center for the battle lines and warning systems goes with it and while I can, in time, replace components of the Net, replacing this facility would be almost impossible.”

Ajuga’s eyes opened a little wider as she clasped her cup of tea and he hoped the girl understood he was being sincere about protecting this Division.

He would have to suggest that Karin let them participate in battles on occasion, maybe call them off their guard duty near the end so they could help with the clean up when the danger was at the lowest. They needed to make the two feel as if they contributed something to the fight and not treat them like newborn cubs. Otherwise, they’d feel shafted. Ajuga was getting to the age where she would be ready to leave the den and Karin wouldn’t be able to protect her daughter so easily after that.

“Now that I know why you think Karin-sama hates you, what makes you think that I would hate you?”

Her entire posture dropped again, and she looked positively dismal.

“Vindula followed Diaemus and me out onto the battlefield,” she confessed meekly.

His first reaction involved fear and anger in equal measures, but he quickly tamped it down. At least he now knew why his daughter had been acting strangely earlier.

“Followed?”

His daughter had a weakness for all things she deemed pretty, and he could see how the flashes of Kido from the battle, at a distance, might be tempting.

“We didn’t mean for her to come with us onto the actual battlefield, and I don’t think she intended to follow us that far, but when the Swarm went after Mama like that, someone had to tend to Mama’s leg while Diaemus and I defended her. Since we couldn’t treat her leg and fight at the same time, we sort of, well… we took Vindula with us,” Ajuga finished, her voice pitched low enough to qualify as muttering. “I carried her and we made sure she was safe. We brought Mama to her and we didn’t take Vindula far past the back lines. The Swarm wasn’t even fighting anymore, they were milling about in confusion, as they always do. We never would have brought her in if we thought it was unsafe!”

Szayel found himself torn between being proud of his daughter for braving such a frightening situation to try and tend to Karin’s leg while the other part wanted to drown Ajuga in a tub of acid for putting his child in harm’s way.

 _Hypocrite_! he scolded himself, resting his head on the back of the sofa and looking at the ceiling. _It_ _’_ _s all fine and dandy when the cub isn_ _’_ _t your own, but as soon as it_ _’_ _s your daughter in the middle of all that madness, you get territorial and protective. Nevertheless, Vindula is far too young to engage in this sort of thing. She doesn_ _’_ _t have the defences the older cubs have. She is so childlike and curious. She would stop to look at a flower and give one of those damn Locusts a chance to bite her head off._

The argument went back and forth in his head for bit before he realized that Ajuga was looking up at him brokenly, clearly still expecting a response from him over what had happened.

“While I am upset at you for bringing Vindula into a situation she’s unprepared for… yet… I do appreciate your honesty, Ajuga. Nothing happened this time. I trust you have learned your lesson and it will not happen again. Right?” he demanded sternly.

Ajuga nodded her head.

“So, you don’t hate me?” she asked hesitantly.

“Oh I am _incredibly_ angry and somewhat disappointed in you, and probably will be for a few days, but I don’t hate you,” he assured her. “Hate is such a strong word, after all.”

That seemed to perk her up a bit.

“Now, why don’t you get on home? Your father is probably tearing his fur out in large handfuls right now, what with your mother at the 4th Division with a sliced-up leg and his daughter missing.”

“You are probably right,” she agreed, shoulders still drooping a little. “Do you think he is going to be mad at me?” she asked hesitantly.

“Oh yes… he’ll be frothing at the mouth, actually,” Szayel replied. “But, the sooner you take your lumps, the sooner they will mend and go away.”

“I hate taking lumps,” she grouched.

“We all do,” he agreed, sending her a smile. “I fear adulthood has more than its share of lumps. Best get used to it.”

Ajuga looked down into her cup for a few more seconds, before draining it and putting it down on the table next to the now-empty teapot.

“Alright.”

She stood up and stretched, looking far better than the trembling mess he had found behind his sofa.

“Thank you Szay. Good night,” she bade him as she made for the door.

“Good night Ajuga,” he returned.

The door clicked behind her and he rose to lock it before tiredly retreating to his bedroom. He turned out the light and undid his dressing gown, hanging it on a hook and then crawling under the covers to join his mate. The bed was already nice and warm and after the long, gruelling day he’d had, sleep wasn’t far off in coming.

 _I must remember to talk to Vindula and remind her that the pretty things are often the most dangerous,_ he thought sleepily before he drifted off.


	21. Protection

Diaemus had never been so ashamed in his life, both for having directly disobeyed an order and for feeling relief that neither Renji nor Szayel had been there to take Vindula back inside, sparing him from needing to explain to them what had happened.

He sprawled out on his bed in his room when he heard the front door open and close, followed by a wave of powerful reiatsu he knew belonged to his father. It seemed that all he was doing was getting into trouble lately and disappointing the one person that he wanted to impress.

He hoped that his father hadn’t heard about how he had disobeyed orders yet or, if he had, would just go to bed after the long battle and tedious after-battle meeting. Of course, he was disappointed in that. His door opened and Ulquiorra stood quietly in the hall, his silhouette visible.

“Diaemus, I wish to speak to you,” his father ordered in that monotone voice of his that meant he was truly upset with his son.

“Yes, Otou-san,” he answered dutifully as he pried himself off the bed and followed his father into the living room.

For several minutes, his father just stared at him while he remained standing in the middle of their living room, head, tail and wings drooped in despair.

“Why did you disobey your superior’s orders?” Ulquiorra asked.

He bit his lip, not wanting to answer because he knew it was going to disappoint his father, and because every time he got into trouble the answer was usually the same.

“Because Ajuga felt something was wrong with her mother and took off to help her. I decided to follow to cover her back, since she was acting irrationally.”

He was honest in that assertion. It seemed as if every time Diaemus got into trouble, it was because of Ajuga, or something she’d done, and yet he could never bring himself to just leave her, to just let her run off alone. He always had to follow and watch over her, even though he had no idea why he continually tempted fate with some of the things the girl did or planned or pulled. It was irrational, and his mother found it amusing and cute, which just irritated him further.

“The reports said you saved Karin’s life,”

“We did,” he confirmed, with just a touch of pride as he peeked hopefully up at his father through his hair, hoping it might get him out of trouble.

They had carved a path through the Swarm with a large Cero blast, a line he had nimbly slipped through to grab Karin in mid-fall and get out again, tugging her out of the odd ball of boiling bugs that had formed around her. He executed it perfectly and he had been proud of himself for pulling it off. Perhaps that was why Ajuga always managed to sucker him in. When they did decide to put their bickering aside they were amazing together and he couldn’t deny the feeling of satisfaction and pride he got when they executed a perfectly planned manoeuvre.

“While it is pleasant news to hear she survived, I expect you to follow orders in the future. For now, you are grounded and confined to your room for a week.”

That crushed the boy’s hope that he would avoid punishment after all and he shivered at the thought. When his father said ‘grounded,’ he meant it. No flying. No gliding. One hundred percent ‘grounded’ and sentenced to travel by putting one foot in front of the other, grounded.

He wanted to argue, to point out that Ajuga still had a mother and his father’s mate still had a friend because of his success and that she would have died or worse had they not intervened. Such a tactic would have been a sure thing with his mother and might have earned him a reward. It would fail utterly in face of his father. So instead, he did the only thing he could do.

“Yes Otou-san. I understand.”

“Good. It is late, go to sleep.”

Diaemus nodded his head and returned to his room.

“Diaemus.”

He turned to face his father.

“Your move was well executed.”

“Thank you, Otou-san.” He felt some of the pain lift from his heart.

“Good night, Diaemus.

“Good night, Otou-san, I will try not to disappoint you again,” he vowed.

He got a nod before Ulquiorra turned about and headed for the room he shared with Diaemus’s mother. He allowed himself a faint smile at that. At least his father recognized the value and the execution of what he’d accomplished, if not the method he’d used. Diaemus returned to bed, feeling slightly better. Of course, he still hadn’t had to apologize to Szayel yet for letting Vindula step foot on the battlefield. Compared to shamefully facing his father, making amends to the Seventh Espada ought to be easy.

Grimmjow suddenly felt a wave of relief as Ajuga stopped hiding her presence. Karin had been unconscious since he dropped her off at the 4th Division so he couldn’t use her eyes to find their daughter. He was just happy he wouldn’t have to go looking for their daughter before Karin woke up from the intensive surgery her leg had undergone. The last thing he wanted to tell her was that he had lost track of their child.

The worst part of the whole ordeal had to be going to Aizen’s meeting. His back still stung slightly from the lashing he had gotten a few weeks back, so he forced himself to attend lest Aizen decide to do something more than give him a spanking, like go after Karin. ‘Kami’ had been in a pissy mood of late and Grimmjow had no plans on antagonizing the bastard any further than he already had with Karin’s exhausted outburst a few weeks ago. Not that he blamed Karin for the lashes he’d received. He’d actually been proud of her for standing up to the asshole that ruled over them.

Still, he’d been distracted during the meeting, wondering where Ajuga could have gone. The only thing that helped him keep it together was the knowledge that the invasion was temporarily over and that any Arrancar strong enough to hurt his daughter was stuck in the same room as he was. For all intents and purposes, he’d known she was safe, wherever she may be.

He could tell she was on her way home, so he changed course. The 4th Division released Karin after the meeting and he gently carried her home, settling her into bed before resuming the search for his wayward daughter. Karin’s wound, while bad, was not something that would need constant monitoring, nor was it a critical injury. It wasn’t something he’d wish on her, but compared to those who had lost limbs during the battle or who had holes punctured through organs her case was less of a priority. Karin was enough of a medic that Unohana felt safe sending her home to recover there, clearing up some space for the more grievously injured, which included those citizens that assisted during the battle, not just Shinigami and Arrancar.

His mate slept in their bed, her bandaged leg elevated and the wrappings still clean. All in all, it could have been much worse. She was still a little bit pale and had an IV on a small pole beside her, but she’d be fine.

“Father?” Ajuga hesitantly poked her head into the room.

He could still smell the tears on her and she looked positively dreadful. He couldn’t think of another time he had seen her so depressed and dejected. Granted, he couldn’t think of a time Karin had gone so overboard with Ajuga either. He understood what had made Karin do it; fear was a powerful emotion that fuelled anger like nothing else. Not, of course, that he would ever admit to feeling such an emotion.

“Come on in, Ajuga,” he called.

Ajuga hesitantly joined him by Karin’s side. Karin didn’t even stir, which wasn’t surprising. The battle had burned her out physically and emotionally and the anesthetics the 4th Division used were powerful. Ajuga took one of her mother’s hands in her own and held it.

“She’s so cold,” she whispered.

“She lost a lot of blood,” he responded.

They sat in silence for about an hour while he tried to think of the best way to bring the subject of orders and such up with Ajuga. Karin was much better at these types of things as he wasn’t all that fond of following the damned things either. Karin finally stirred and her eyes opened a bit to stare up at them in exhaustion.

“I am sorry Mama,” Ajuga whispered before he could speak. “It’s just…” Ajuga paused, “it feels like you don’t trust me and that you still see me like a little cub that needs to be protected, when I am not. I want you to be proud of me. I want to show you how good of a hunter and a warrior I am. I know you are scared for me, but you can’t protect me forever and it makes me look weak when my own parents don’t even think I can handle these battles when weak pluses can.”

Karin looked like she was about to speak, but Ajuga continued before her mother could interrupt her.

“It never occurred to me that it was _because_ you trusted us that you left us in the back lines. It never even crossed my mind that a regiment of them could attack from another direction until Szay pointed it out. I guess that’s pretty stupid of me, since that was my reasoning when Diaemus and Hana and I went to disable that alarm, the day the Net fell.”

So that was where she had been. Grimmjow had checked the Science Division’s main building but he should have known to check the personal quarters. Still, he hadn’t expected her to go to Szayel of all people, let alone for Szayel to have clearly taken care of the whole issue. He could see her crying on Jushiro’s shoulders, possibly even Starrk’s, but, when he thought about it, she had wanted to hide and, as large as the Estate was, it was still too close to home.

“It never occurred to me that Mushi might be able to communicate if they got so close, that he might have been able to act as a beacon for those Scarabs to port right into the city and open up gates here. Szay was right, Diaemus and I can patrol a much large area than even most Shinigami and are strong enough to hold most things at bay until the lines could shift.

“But, so could the rest of the Numerous! I know you love me Mama, even when it feels like you don’t, and you want to keep me safe. I need to show the world my own strength too. If the others see me as weak I will only be in even _more_ danger, and it won’t be from the Swarm. So please, Mama, can we work out a compromise? I promise I’ll try to obey orders better if you can at least find a way to let me fight on occasion, the way I was meant to fight.”

Karin swallowed and her gaze turned his way. He had to admit he was still a little shell shocked from Ajuga’s speech too. Letting her fight on the battlefield had been the number one topic during what few arguments he had with Karin, and while he enjoyed the makeup sex, he abhorred fighting with her.

“You’ll understand when you have your own cub one day, but, if you promise to follow orders, no matter how much you don’t like them…” Karin hesitated, “…then I will see about letting you and Diaemus out onto the battlefield a bit more,” she sighed in defeat.

“Thank you, Mama!” Ajuga reached over and gave her mother a hug, mindful of the IV line and her bandaged leg. “I won’t let you down, I promise.”

“I know,” Karin said, embracing her back. The girl pulled away and her mother gave her a very tired smile. “It’s late. You should probably go to bed, and I need my rest too.”

“Okay. Good night, Mama, Papa.”

“Good night, Ajuga,” both parents intoned, watching her walk out of the room.

The door slid shut behind his daughter and Grimmjow crawled into bed next to his mate’s undamaged side. He caught her lips in his own and gave her a deep, languid kiss. His family was settled once more and Ajuga was back to calling him ‘Papa.’ Save for Karin’s injuries, all was now right with _his_ world. The Sixth would never admit it, but hearing her call him ‘father’ had bothered him.

“I never knew how hard it was going to be to let her go,” Karin whispered softly as he released her lips, but the kiss had worked its magic and she seemed less tense now. “I have no idea how Nanao handles letting Hana out there so easily.”

“Hana isn’t subject to the same danger as Ajuga, or… at least she isn’t in as much danger,” Grimmjow pointed out. “Ajuga is stronger than Hana though, stronger than most on the battlefield. She will be fine. We trained her well. It is time for her to start working on her own reputation and forging her own path. If we were in Hueco Mundo and a normal Hollow couple she would have already left the den and she’d be looking for a mate to start her own pack.”

Karin shivered beside him at the thought, before gasping, her eyes going wide as she stared at the ceiling.

“We have been so busy that I haven’t even _thought_ to talk to her about things like protective sex. She had better _not_ be sleeping with anyone!” Karin growled threateningly in a way that made his groin tighten.

 _Down boy,_ he admonished his rebellious anatomy. _Karin is in no shape to be having sex right now._

 _‘Not if it_ _’_ _s oral. Flip her about and see what she_ _’_ _s willing to do_ _…’_ his rebellious libido urged.

“I had Harribel talk to her about that sort of stuff since there are things Hollows go through that humans don’t. I thought she would be trustworthy enough to give Ajuga the basics,” he responded, doing his best to ignore the internal argument going on inside his brain about the various ways he could engage his mate in positions that might not put a strain on her injuries.

Karin blinked up at him in surprise before pulling his head down for another kiss, which didn’t help swing the tide of the battle in favour of what he considered common sense.

“You have no idea how sexy you are when you are being a good father,” Karin purred.

 _Oh, fuck it!_ he growled inwardly, while his lecherous tendencies cheered in triumph.

Mindful of her leg and that stupid IV line, he began to ravage her neck and face while his hand cupped and toyed with a breast. If his suddenly amorous attentions surprised Karin, she didn’t show it. The way she ran her hands along his skin and attacked his face and neck with her lips and teeth suggested that she was more than happy with the attention. If anything, there was almost something desperate to it as she rubbed as much of her body against his as she could, as if needing to know that he was here.

He nearly froze when he realized that she was afraid, not of him of course, but of what _could_ have happened during the battle. Had those insects not wanted her alive, they would have killed her. To make matters worse, they’d almost taken her. He had almost lost her to the Swarm. He hugged her tighter, suddenly needing to know she was still here as well.

While they both desperately wanted to maul and fuck each other senseless, the very large gash full of stitches on her leg prevented that kind of rambunctiousness. Instead, Grimmjow flipped himself around as his smaller brain had suggested earlier and started to attack her with his mouth and tongue, eating her out as if it were going to be his last meal. Karin lay panting under his attention, but she did wrap one hand around his length and stroked him, at least for a little while. They ended up on their sides and Karin eventually hissed in pain as even the small motions moved her leg.

Before he could pull away though, she grabbed his hips and moved him so he was now on his hands and knees above her so she could remain comfortable on her back. It was a little awkward as he had to keep his weight off of her, but he was an Espada, he was tough, and she tasted so good. She squeezed his ass before putting a bit of pressure on him, bringing his hips down so she could wrap sinful lips around his aching arousal.

Normally they could have gone on like this for longer, possibly a half-hour or more. However, she was tired and sore, even though the pain numbing Kido took most of the pain away. She shivered under him after only five minutes, her juices filling his mouth and he lapped up all the fluid he could. Grimmjow pulled away from her while she panted out her release. He shifted around and snuggled against her side.

“What about you?” she asked concerned, regaining her breath before letting out a strangling sound as the movement reminded her of her injury.

“I can care for myself,” he assured her, nuzzling her neck and enjoying her scent as he wrapped a hand around his length and finished himself off, careful to make sure his cum didn’t soil her wrappings.

“I love you,” she sighed reaching over as far as her injury would allow and running fingers through his hair.

“Hmm,” he agreed.

True to her word, Karin tried to rotate Ajuga and Diaemus into the smaller battles, or relieve them of guard duty when the main battle was nearly done and the danger far less. True to her word, Ajuga did her best to follow her mother’s orders, regardless of how boring it was. In all honesty, Hana was surprised, but at least Ajuga had a tendency to lean towards fighting close by, and even seeking her out on the few times they were permitted to join in for the full battle and not just help with the mop up.

Karin, herself, was not yet back on the battlefield, her leg nowhere near recovered enough to consider fighting and there were just too many that needed Orihime’s help. The poor woman spent every waking minute helping those that had lost limbs or were hovering on death’s door. By the end of her shift, Orihime barely had the energy to make it home and, more often than not, Diaemus or Ulquiorra would pick her up from work and help her home. Unohana was in no better shape, for all of her calm.

Thus Hana took it upon herself, as much as she was able, to make sure Ajuga stayed safe and out of the Swarms way. With the near kidnapping of Karin, the danger to Ajuga was very fresh in Hana’s mind and she’d be damned if something similar was going to happen to her childhood friend.

Of course, this was easier said than done, especially for one young Shinigami.

Hana was in a bind, a big bind. Not only did she now have to watch Ajuga closely, but also their mutual friend, Diaemus, was a little too intelligent for Hana’s liking and he knew she was hiding something from them. Fortunately, Diaemus wasn’t exactly the confrontational sort. He wouldn’t out and ask her to spill whatever it was she was keeping from him. That just wasn’t his style. Still, she could tell her Arrancar friend was stewing over a number of things, including what had transpired at the tower when they had confronted the Generals the day the Defence Net fell. Between that, the latest battle, and her own need to protect Ajuga, guilt began to eat slowly at her where the winged boy was concerned.

None of them had lied to Aizen. They truly hadn’t understood what the Generals were saying since they were speaking with buzzes instead of words. All Hana knew was that neither those humanoid bugs, nor Aizen, ought to find out about Ajuga’s heritage, under any circumstances. Thus, she had been the one acting irrationally, starting the fight with a chain of lightning and trying to kill them as fast as she could. While she trusted in Ajuga’s Heirro to keep her safe, she didn’t want the bugs to learn of her friend’s lineage.

The Swarm knew of Karin, and if they learned Ajuga was Karin’s daughter then they would go after Ajuga the way they went after Karin. Ajuga and secrets were passing acquaintances at best; the girl couldn’t keep one to save her life, in Hana’s opinion, so if she ever learned about her birthright, then there was a good chance word would get out, and if word got out than Aizen would hear of it.

Hana recalled all too well when Aizen had dragged her before him, wondering if she’d had Royal Blood flowing through her veins. She did, not a lot, but perhaps enough to entice him. She did not want to think about what would happen to her, or Ajuga, or Karin if Aizen learned she and Karin had hidden this from him. She was not a little girl anymore and she now understood why Aizen had been interested on that day, long ago. The thought of being raped by him and possibly forced to carry his child terrified her.

She had taken up Kido for that very reason. Kido let her fight at a distance and made sure the Swarm’s mandibles stayed away from her blood. She didn’t know if she had enough of it to trigger a reaction in the Swarm or not, but she was not about to find out the hard way.

Her thoughts drifted back to Diaemus. He knew her almost better than Ajuga did, and thus he knew she would have never attacked so irrationally, let alone been so determined to see the new species dead when they all knew how much Szayel would want them alive. Hana knew that Diaemus was capable of working things out and the way he kept looking at her in that unnerving ‘attempting to decipher’ way was getting to her. That brought her back to the dilemma she faced.

Did she dare tell him?

She wanted to trust Diaemus and she knew he was not the type to go about blathering, but this was big. She knew he was also loyal to his father, and that Ulquiorra was loyal to Aizen. That was one of the things in the ‘Don’t tell Diaemus’ column. Aizen would kill them for hiding this knowledge, or at least punish them harshly for it. On the other hand, Aizen had never really ordered those of Royal Blood to identify themselves, so technically they were not hiding anything from him. It wasn’t lying if one was never asked to reveal something that they might not have known in the first place

Hana just wasn’t sure she wanted to risk everything on a technicality. Somehow, she doubted that Aizen would split hairs on the issue. Instead, he’d probably assume the worst and all hell would break loose.

“Hana, you have, yet again, ceased working,” Diaemus commented.

She jumped, having completely forgotten he was right there helping her haul the damn carcasses from today’s battle into a pile for disposal by burning. Ajuga was off helping her mother’s Division do the same thing several kilometers away. It was filthy, nasty but necessary work and about as intellectually stimulating as watching grass grow, which was what had set her mind wandering in the first place.

“Sorry, lost in thought,” she apologized.

“I noticed.”

She continued hauling her current corpse to the edge of the growing pile and went back for another, leaving it to stronger people to throw it onto the pile. She still had a bit of time to work the problem out, weighing the decision to tell Diaemus or not. Something this important and dangerous wasn’t a safe discussion topic in a situation where the risk of being overhead was so great.

She’d dragged her last corpse to the soon-to-be bonfire and her unit commander released her from her duties when she made up her mind. She had to tell him. Ajuga was just too reckless and Hana could not cover both of their hides at all times. Sooner or later, the Swarm would get a taste of Ajuga’s blood, or make the connection, and disaster would follow. At least Diaemus could stay by Ajuga’s side and protect her. Hana had to obey the commands of both her Taichou and her Espada. Diaemus would be less likely to have orders that would conflict with protecting Ajuga from a stray bite and a subsequent abduction.

“Diaemus, can I talk to you,” she called to him before he could leave.

He turned his green gaze her way before nodding his head and approaching her.

“Not here, somewhere secure,” she indicated, speaking a little more quietly.

He looked at her oddly, but then seemed to decide that whatever it was had to be important enough to ask for a certain level of privacy, and Hana had never been the frivolous one in their little trio of friends. He gave her a nod and waited. There was only one place she could think of that was secure enough for this conversation, and that was the Science and Research Building, so that was where she dragged him. It wasn’t unusual for them to be there and no one there would comment on their presence. Szayel was monitoring all the half-breed children closely and Hana frequently accompanied them. The staff, long accustomed to their visits, greeted them warmly and let them know where Szayel had busied himself for the day. Hana thanked them politely and led Diaemus down to one of the empty examination rooms.

She made sure the door was secure and all the recording equipment turned off before facing him and taking a deep breath.

“What I am about to tell you cannot leave this room. Do you feel like you can keep this to yourself and tell no one, not even Ulquiorra-san?”

“I do not yet know what the secret is,” he pointed out, holding up both hands and frowning. Hana wouldn’t settle for anything less than a real pledge of silence, no hedging allowed.

“Swear it Diaemus. This information _cannot_ get out… to anyone!”

He studied her for some time, clearly trying to determine how serious she was and to decide whether or not he wanted to be tangled up in whatever it was she was about to tell him. She could almost see his misgivings as he weighed them against the lure of finding out what had Hana so concerned. Finally, he brushed his hair out of his eyes and took a deep breath, having made up his mind.

“Very well, I swear not to tell another soul.”

“Thank the stars,” she sighed in relief.

“Now, what has you so bothered?”

“To make a very long story short, Karin-san is the direct heir to the Spirit King’s Throne, meaning both she and Ajuga-chan have royal blood flowing through their veins.”

Diaemus’s normally calm, even-tempered countenance saw a look of utter shock and more than a little bewilderment roll across his features. It promptly camped out there, as Hana hurried to elaborate on her initial announcement.

“This… wasn’t what I expected you to tell me.”

While he digested that, Hana reached out and took hold of his shoulders, bringing him eye to eye with her so that he knew this wasn’t some joke. The Shinigami was the oldest of their little trio and there were times when she felt she had to play that particular card. If there ever was a time to remind him that she was serious and that she was his _sempai,_ this was it.

“The Swarm _knows_ that Karin-san is of royal decent and they have been targeting her since they discovered her. That’s the reason the fighting is often thickest around her, especially when one of them manages to taste a drop of her blood. They want to put her on the Throne to cut off Aizen’s power and supposedly stabilize the Realms. That’s why the Swarm went ape shit the other day before you and Ajuga rescued her! The Swarm wasn’t trying to kill her. They were trying to _take_ her.”

The boy before her took that in as well, looking a little overwhelmed for a second.

“So… the Swarm’s true motivation, for over a decade, isn’t to attack Aizen-kami or the city or its citizens, but to capture Karin Jaegerjaquez.”

“Maybe some of both, but yeah.”

Diaemus carefully took a seat on the examination table, leaning forward so that his wings wouldn’t brush the cold metal of the table. His eyes never left Hana’s and she got the impression he was trying to find holes in her story or flaws in the logic of it. True enough, he folded his arms across his chest and held up one finger.

“Such a notion on the Swarm’s part is foolish, and would only prove temporary at best. Karin-san lacks the power to move a strand of Aizen-Kami’s hair. He would easily overpower her and retake the Throne.”

Hana nodded, and then spread her hands wide, trying to get him to see she was telling the truth.

“That’s exactly what _she_ told them. The problem is that the same Royal blood flows through _Ajuga_ _’_ _s_ veins and you _know_ how impulsive she can be. If the Swarm were to learn she was Karin’s daughter, they would go after her as well, full force.”

Hana was pacing now, Diaemus’s green eyes tracking her as she made her way back and forth across the lab. Finally, he clasped his hands and sighed, and Hana stopped to look at him. He looked at the tile on the floor, twiddling his thumbs as he chose his words.

“I understand now why Karin-san has been upset about Ajuga-chan joining in on the latest battles. I had assumed it was just an irrational human emotion, similar to the one my mother experiences on what seems to be an hourly basis.”

“Well, there is probably some of that too.” Hana couldn’t help but to chuckle at his assessment of Orihime’s tendency to worry.

“Who is aware of her heritage? Clearly nor Aizen-Kami or Karin-san would be gracing his bed. It is no secret he has been trying to breed an heir from his wife and it is no secret he’s been less than successful in that venture.”

Hana made a face at his description of Unohana-sama’s plight, but nodded in agreement.

“Karin-san knows and Szay knows for sure. I think her father might know, and there’s me, but I’m not sure about anyone else.”

“You’re telling me that Ajuga remains unaware of her lineage.”

It was a statement rather than a question.

“Would _you_ trust her with a secret?” Hana replied.

“No,” he answered without hesitation.

“So, can I count on you to help me do the best I can to keep her blood out of the Swarm’s mandibles, and not to tell anyone?” Hana pleaded.

He remained quiet, weighing his options and Hana left him to his thinking. She knew he would not lie to her so if he planned on telling anyone she would know right away. That was another reason she had chosen this place. If he did decide to let her down, she could quickly lock him in down here and pray that Szayel would have something to with which to erase his memory.

 _Perhaps I should have checked to make sure he has something like that first,_ she couldn’t help but to think. Well, what was done was done. Now all she could do was wait for him to agree to help.

Diaemus finally seemed to come to some kind of decision and she tapped her foot nervously as she waited for his verdict.

“Fine. I see no reason not to keep this secret. If Unohana-sama cannot produce an heir due to the imbalance in their reiatsu, then there is little hope that either Karin-san or Kami forbid, Ajuga would fare any better. I do not feel I am betraying Aizen-Kami by keeping this from him, as the knowledge will do him little good even if he did have it. I will do my best to assist you in the thankless task of keeping Ajuga’s heritage a secret from any others as well as the Swarm.”

Hana could have fainted in relief. Instead, she settled for offering him a bright smile and a ‘thank you.’ He was far faster than she was and better equipped to keep Ajuga-chan out of trouble. Unlike her, Diaemus had no Division and, as such, had no duties that he needed to carry out. He would be a much more reliable Ajuga-sitter. She let him read the utter gratitude on her face.

“Thank you Diaemus. You have no idea how relieved I am about this.” She meant it too.

He ran another hand through his coppery hair and looked around, as if trying to figure out, once again, how he’d ended up in this position. In this case, that meant having to carry around some burdensome knowledge without letting the subject of that knowledge in on the secret.

_Well, welcome to the club, Diaemus. I can sure use your help._

Thankfully, her misgivings about sharing this had been for naught. The way her Arrancar friend was slowly working her way more and more onto the battlefield, the more likely it was that an accident would occur and two sets of eyes were far better than one when it came to looking after Ajuga-chan’s danger-prone tail.


	22. Relaxed Meetings

“If you are done with me, Szayel-sama, I would like to leave now,” Nemu requested.

“If you must,” he sighed unhappily.

“Would you prefer I stayed?” Nemu inquired, stopping when she heard his tone of voice.

“Yes, but I suppose it would be unfair to you. We have all been working hard and if you do not get a break, I will never hear the end of it from Karin-sama.”

He gave her his most long-suffering tone of voice. “Hmm, come to think of it, perhaps I will walk over to the Estate with you. I would like to look at her leg and make sure it is healing properly.”

Since the slice had gone to the bone and Orihime had exhausted herself healing others, Karin’s recovery was slow going and Unohana had ordered her to put no weight on the leg as it mended. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on what way one wanted to look at it, paperwork was considered safe and Nanao brought it home by the stack since Karin was unable to oversee her usual drills.

He needed to speak with Karin about a number of things. Her Claim on him was wearing off and he would need to refresh Nemu’s Claim soon. Since Karin was on ordered bed rest, he would have to go to her and the window in which he could see to Nemu’s Claim before too much reiatsu escaped was very slim, meaning he would probably have to do it at Starrk’s place.

In addition, Karin had wanted to talk to him about something the other day before waving him off, since Tatsuki had been present. Curiosity had been eating at him over what it could have possibly been. He decided that he might get the chance to find out if he accompanied Nemu over to this so call ‘girl’s night’ Nanao was putting together to help cheer up the invalid. The poor woman had been stuck at the Estate for over a week now, which made feeding Mushi interesting. The specimen displayed a growing level of animosity for each day that Karin failed to show up.

Putting his irritation with the bug aside for now, Szayel followed Nemu down to their personal quarters so he could freshen up and make himself presentable. He had been running test after test all day and his uniform was slightly soiled. Appearing in public in anything other than an immaculate ensemble simply wouldn’t do. Nemu joined him in the shower and took the sponge before he could say anything.

“You deal with your hair, Szayel-sama; I will take care of the rest.”

Her voice would have sounded dispassionate to most, but he knew her well enough to catch the little things hidden within it, like the slight hint of teasing when she’d mentioned his hair. Even if he had missed it in her voice, her hands certainly made sure he knew she was teasing him as she rubbed the soap-soaked sponge all over his body, paying special attentions to the spots she knew got him riled up.

After all the torment Aizen had put him through, there was a depressing low number of sexual situations he could indulge in that didn’t bring up traumatic flashbacks and mini-panic attacks. Sex in the shower was one safe thing, at least for now. He could take her from behind as normally expected of a Claiming ritual, but mating with someone face to face at the moment was just too painful, and it hurt worse to know that he couldn’t mate with her the way she deserved being his mate, at least in the bedroom. They could do anything as long as they were standing or in the shower. Something about the way the water ran over his body kept him calm and grounded in the here and now.

They did have someplace to be, so Nemu didn’t pleasure him for too long before working him into a soft release. When he’d come down from the elated feeling he got from his release as well as her own, Szayel found her resting against his back, her fingers lazily moving along his arm. Absently, he realized he had yet to wash his hair, but Nemu took care of that while he recovered. Her fingers massaging his scalp almost put him to sleep. He had been running himself ragged studying the new specimens, trying to get as much data as he could as fast as he could before Aizen decided he was moving too slow. He also really wanted that early portal warning system. He had a family to protect and he just knew that his children, particularly Vindula, would be seeing more and more of the war no matter how hard he tried to ensure their safety.

They exited the shower, dried off and dressed in something other than their work clothes as all of his lab coats were currently in a large pile of dirty laundry.

 _Abarai has been slacking in his duties,_ he noted sourly, jotting down a mental note to make sure his children’s nursemaid got his ass back in gear as far as cleaning the den. Honestly, some days he wondered why he bothered with the redhead.

Unfortunately, his sharp mind was always quick to supply him with a dozen answers, the foremost one being that Vindula adored her guardian ‘Ji-ji, as did Abisara, even if his son was far more reserved in showing it. It would upset the twins if Renji were to disappear suddenly and, Szayel reluctantly had to admit, Renji cared for his children very deeply. It would take a very powerful force to get through their protector to harm them, as he’d more than proven. For all of their historical animosity, almost all of which had faded away over the years, and the little bit of treason Karin forced Szayel to participate in every ten months to avoid having to Claim Abarai again himself, the one thing they did agree on was the protection and care of the twins. Even Szayel had to admit that his twins could not have had a more trustworthy guardian.

The meathead still needed to finish the laundry, however.

“Are you ready, Szayel-sama?” Nemu asked, pulling him back into the real world.

“Yes, my dear. Let’s go see how Karin-sama and her leg are doing.”

Karin looked out over the barren winter garden and let out a sigh of melancholy. Yes, she needed fresh air, but at this time of the year, the world felt so dead. In addition, her leg throbbed, thanks to moving from her bed to the warm blankets they had set out on the balcony.

“Something wrong Karin?” Nanao asked as she settled down beside her with a steaming cup of tea.

“I hate being out of commission,” she answered, sounding a little more sullen than she’d like. It certainly wasn’t Nanao’s fault she’d been wounded. Fortunately, Nanao didn’t seem to take it that way.

“Don’t we all,” Nanao agreed. “I am sure it will heal in time. Who knows? Maybe Orihime-chan will have recovered enough that she can give it a bit of a boost!”

“Here’s hoping,” Karin sighed, then looked around. “Have you seen Ajuga today?” Karin suddenly asked suspiciously, casting her ‘sight’ out to find her wayward daughter.

“She said something about learning how to use Bala today with Diaemus and Ulquiorra-san when I passed her at the gate this morning,” Nanao answered.

“Ah, that helps,” Karin smiled as she found her daughter and Diaemus with Ulquiorra close by, no doubt practicing just as Ajuga had claimed she would.

It wasn’t as if Karin believed her daughter had been lying. Ajuga had learned at a very young age that she couldn’t get away with lying and any attempt to do so would lead to a spanking. No, what she found surprising was that Grimmjow would let Ulquiorra teach their daughter anything and that he had been the one to request such a thing in the first place. It wasn’t as if Grimmjow wasn’t superb with the use of Cero. If anything, her mate was probably more adept as using it, even if Ulquiorra could fire ones with more power to them. She wasn’t as sure about his skill with a Bala, as she had never truly seen him use one.

She toyed with asking her mate about the odd decision, but decided against it. He got uncomfortable when he did something he didn’t want to, when he bent his overbearing pride for the sake of their daughter. There was one thing she could do though, and she did it now, focusing a whirlpool of love down the Claim towards her mate. She felt his brief moment of surprise, before he returned the feeling. He might never say ‘I love you’ in words, but that didn’t matter to her. He showed her in ways that made words unnecessary.

“Day-dreaming?” Nanao asked. One of her eyebrows went up as she adjusted her glasses.

“Hmm, just thinking,” she countered, feeling a bit of that pain for Nanao, who had lost the man she loved just as she’d finally given in to his perpetual and seemingly endless courting.

Karin briefly wondered if Nanao would ever find another man to enter her life. She had never met Shunsui, but what she had learned of him over the years from the others made her think that the last thing he would want for his ‘Nanao-chan’ would be to eternally mourn him. She was too young for that, barely older than Karin herself in Soul Society terms. She knew that if she somehow died she wouldn’t want Grimmjow pining after her for the rest of his life, even though she knew he was stubborn enough to do it.

“It looks like Nemu and Szayel are almost here, and I can see Tatsuki and Tesra will be here soon as well. No sign of Orihime-chan yet, but she is probably running late at the 4th again,” Karin reported, forcing her thought onto a happier path.

“Lilynette will get the door I am sure. Is there any sign of Rangiku? She wasn’t positive if she was going to be able to convince Nnoitra to let her come.”

“Not yet,” Karin replied. “If she was coming though, I suspect she would have come with Tesra and Tatsuki. She mustn’t have been able to convince him to let her come.”

“Oh well…” Nanao sighed sadly.

“At least she seems happier these days.” Karin pointed out.

She hadn’t known the person Rangiku had been before the war, so she had no way of comparing the curvy woman’s current state of mind with what it might once have been, but she did remember the bruised and skittish housebound inmate she’d first seen during the first few Claim meetings she’d attended.

Karin watched as Szayel and Nemu entered through the front gate. They didn’t bother knocking since they knew Karin would see their arrival. Lilynette greeted them in the foyer and told them where they were meeting.

“Karin-sama, you look incredibly pale,” Szayel noted as he and Nemu joined them.

“Blood loss does that,” Karin responded dryly. The Espada made a ‘tsk-tsk’ sound and gave her his best, disapproving look.

“So I have been told. Someone also informed me that you haven’t seen a proper doctor since you were stitched up.”

She shook her head, but shrugged, as if unconcerned.

“The 4th Division is packed with cases much worse than mine. It seems as if the Swarm is trying to do as much damage as possible before they lay off for the spring,” she noted, then saw the case he carried and heaved an exaggerated sigh. “You might as well come have a look, even if you are not a ‘proper doctor.’”

Szayel took the opportunity to sit down and placed the white bag he’d brought with him in his lap. Opening it, Karin caught sight of what looked like a fully equipped first aid kit. He gave her a hard look in return.

“I fully intend to ‘have a look.’ I will _not_ allow you to die from some ridiculous infection due to poor wound management techniques. It would be an ignoble way to go and I’m sure your mate would be quite put out.”

Karin lay fully on her back, twitching only slightly as the cold air touched her leg as he removed it from the blanket and began gently unwound the bindings. Looking at him, a person might think that Szayel’s hands would be cold, but they were warm as they probed the damaged flesh. Karin bit her lip and made a hissing sound as he gently touched the stitches, doing her best not to look at her mangled leg.

“They seem to have done an adequate job, though there is a bit of inflammation. This should help it heal faster and stave off any infection,” he declared as he pulled a jar out of the bag he had brought with him. “You haven’t been using that pain-numbing Kido too much have you?” he suddenly asked, peering at her with some concern.

Karin shook her head.

“I try not to use it too much. I don’t want to miss any warning pains if I move my leg in a bad way, especially because the wound did go into the bone. Unohana-san warned me about such things, which is why they don’t use it too much even in the 4th Division. Pain is there for a reason, no matter how much we hate it.”

“I am pleased to hear you say so,” Szayel sniffed, and opened up the jar.

Karin felt a flash of nostalgia as Szayel worked the cream into her leg, his hands firm yet gentle. She couldn’t help but to think about the time her father had tended to her strained ankle after she twisted it during a soccer match. The memory was an old one now and she examined it with a mixture of love as well as the pain of loss.

“Is something wrong?” Szayel asked worriedly when he noticed her expression, his hands stopping their careful work.

“No, just thinking about my father,” she confessed.

“What was he like?” Nemu asked, sounding curious. Karin had heard stories about Nemu’s creator, none of them flattering, so a certain amount of inquisitiveness about the natures of other fathers seemed understandable.

“Outrageously loud,” she answered, trying to give an honest description. Her small smile grew larger as she recalled some of his crazier antics. “Obnoxiously over-protective of Yuzu and myself. Exuberant at the most inappropriate times. He was so full of life, always bouncing everywhere and exclaiming over every little thing like an excited child. It was part of what made him such a good doctor. He was so goofy that the children that ended up at our clinic were instantly at ease with him, no matter how sick or injured they were. He used to drive Ichi-nii and I insane.”

She closed her eyes and allowed herself to think of the man in question, managing to do so without tearing up too badly.

“Are you implying that I remind you of your father?” Szayel asked in a huff, even as his hands gently re-wrapped fresh bindings over her horrid looking thigh.

“Have you seen yourself in a mirror when presented with a new specimen?” Karin asked one eyebrow going up and her expression daring him to refute her description.

“I’ve seen my reflection a few times, and I most certainly do not jump about like a hyperactive toddler.”

“No, maybe not quite that much _physical_ enthusiasm,” Karin amended in the face of his denial, then paused for a moment. “It was your hands. You have the grip of someone that knows what he or she is doing. For all of Dad’s insanity, he did too.”

“Well… I believe I can accept that as a compliment” Szayel conceded and then smiled at her as he tucked her re-dressed leg back under the blankets.

“Since almost everyone is here, I am going to go get the trays of snacks and a fresh, hot pot of tea,” Nanao announced, rising and shaking out the folds of her kimono.

“Do you require assistance?” Nemu asked. Nanao gave her a grateful look and nodded.

“That would be appreciated.”

Both women left, leaving Karin with Szayel on the porch.

“Now that we are alone, what was it you almost brought up to me the other day when your human friend, Tatsuki was there? It looked like you wanted to say something but stopped when you noticed her presence,” Szayel inquired. “Do tell me it’s something interesting, yes?”

“Hmm? Give me a sec. I forgot what it was…”

Karin frowned, having to think about it.

What was it she was going to ask him about that day? It had to be something involving one of their secrets, or she wouldn’t have cared that Tatsuki was there. Stupid drugs messing with her brain, stupid bugs, stupid bloodline…

“Oh, I remember now!” she exclaimed and brightened up. “Bug dope!”

He looked at her as if she’d uttered something in a completely foreign language.

“It’s something humans use in the Living Realm to keep stinging and biting bugs away, a repellent. You spray it, either on the body or in the air and the smell deters bugs and in some cases, it can keep them from landing on you and biting you. I was wondering if there was something you could make, some non-lethal, non-carcinogenetic injection or something that would mask the taste of our blood so when the Swarm does get a mouthful they won’t recognize it.”

He blinked in surprise, but she could see the wheels turning as the idea took root in his brain. If they could mask the flavour of Royal blood, it would make the battlefield infinitely safer for both Karin and her daughter. It would also negate most of her fears about letting Ajuga participate in the battles.

“An intriguing idea. I might be able to work something up. Perhaps if we try to concentrate the compound we discovered in those meadow samples. It’s too weak on its own, but if we combine it with something else and concentrate it…”

Szayel trailed off, his mind elsewhere for a moment, then shook his head as if to clear it.

“It will wait until morning. That data is nearly five years old now and it will keep. Now that _that_ is out of the way, and since we are conveniently alone now… There _is_ one thing I need from you, if you think you have the strength for it. I know your Claim on me won’t last as long, but a quick ‘top-off’ for now would be wise, given how weak it has become. There is also the fact I need to refresh Nemu’s Claim.”

“I suppose,” she agreed. “Give me your hand for now and we will worry about Nemu’s Claim later, after I recover a bit,” she ordered.

He rested his hand in hers and then shivered as pleasure raced over and through his body. It was a truly a crime that she could do such things with touch alone. Karin, while uncomfortable doing so with others, did enjoy doing something similar to her mate. It was always amusing to watch him suddenly go rigid with nothing more than a simple brush of her fingers against his skin. To Szayel, it seemed she also occasionally used it to deliver a bit of payback after Grimmjow had been a dick about something.

Nemu and Nanao returned after a few minutes with Tatsuki in tow. Szayel excused himself at that point, for this was supposed to be a gathering for the women. Jokes about his appearance aside, he was very much male and did have a lot of work to oversee. He definitely didn’t need Aizen accusing him of shirking his duties.

Orihime arrived almost ten minutes later with Rangiku by her side. Nnoitra had given Rangiku permission to help with the wounded at the 4th Division and who was she to argue if Orihime dragged her to a females-only get-together afterwards? Orihime was the Fourth Espada’s mate, after all. It was nice to see her leash lengthened a little and for Nnoitra to start releasing his grip on her, letting the blonde regain some small semblance of life.

 _I think we all needed this,_ Karin realized as she enjoyed the presence of her female friends, even if she had to do it while laying on her back with an aching leg.

The women exchanged gossip, traded books and recipes, sipped tea, ate and praised the food Nanao had graciously made, and a sense of good cheer settled over the small party. The one piece of good news that truly relieved all of them was what Tatsuki had to share. She told them about Ggio’s frightened-yet-determined request for Tesra and Tatsuki to adopt his as-yet-unborn child, to keep it safe from Barragan.

It was as if someone had waved a red flag in front of a bull. The assembled women spent the rest of the afternoon plotting how to assist the two couples. With Szayel expected to attend and monitor the birth, Karin and Nemu assured everyone that the various plans they came up with were all workable. Not even Barragan could get into the Science and Research building if Szayel didn’t want him there, and if Karin didn’t want him in there, then Szayel didn’t have much of a choice. So long as they could get Soi Fon there when she went into labour, all should work out in the end. They had no doubts that they could get Unohana to agree to oversee the delivery at the Science, Research building, for it was just as well-equipped as the 4th Division, and the circumstances that threatened the child dictated the extra precautions. Once Tatsuki and Tesra took custody of the baby, they could move the child to the 4th Division if need be.

Orihime even managed to scrounge up enough power at the end of the gathering to mend the worst part of her leg and Nemu removed the stitches for her. She promised to stay off it until it completely healed. She also promised to drop by the 4th Division tomorrow to see about returning to work and light duty, and conveniently bring up their plans with Unohana-Taichou while she was there. No one wanted to upset Unohana by being reckless and skipping procedure. Until she had a release form stating her leg had healed, Karin was to do nothing other than the activities outlined on her file as ‘acceptable exercise.’

Her lesson over, Ajuga stretched and left to return to the city. Now that Harribel had explained things to her in a way that she understood, Ajuga went into her Cero and Bala lessons with a fresh prospective. For once, she got everything right and she could see how much of a relief it was to her teacher that she suddenly seemed to grasp the concept. She was surprised and pleased that Ulquiorra even offered her a small piece of praise for getting the job done today. Granted, creating a Bala was more interesting than making a Cero and she honestly liked the Bala technique more. She’d already come up with a few ideas about how to use it to herd and trap her prey.

While she was a little upset, and surprised, that her father wasn’t the one instructing her, she appreciated the fact that her father and Ulquiorra seemed to have come to a sort of skill-swap agreement. Ulquiorra taught them ranged, energy-type attacks while Grimmjow taught them hand-to-hand combat techniques, something Diaemus detested but in which he reluctantly participated. Ajuga often believed the thing he really hated about the close combat lessons her father conducted had less to do with the actual training and more to do with the fact that she was his partner and out-performed him. Diaemus didn’t like losing to her any more than she did to him. However, as long as Grimmjow forbade the use of Sonido and other such quick movements during their training, and the training took place on the ground, he didn’t stand a chance.

Of course, her father revealed his more sadistic side when he brought them to the clearing that was quickly becoming their private training grounds and set them up to battle in the open air. With no cover and all that free flying space, Diaemus proved to be the superior fighter, especially when he removed the prohibition on using Sonido. Ajuga had definitely learned her lesson about bragging on that particular day, which she secretly suspected was her father’s purpose behind the whole exercise.

 _If anyone needs a lesson on bragging it_ _’_ _s him, that hypocrite,_ she whined to herself. _Why do parents always have a_ _‘_ _do as I say, not as I do_ _’_ _mantra? Well_ _…_ _Ulquiorra-san generally lives by his own rules, but he_ _’_ _s different._

Then again, even she had noticed the change in her father over the years. As she had accidentally overheard Ulquiorra comment to Aizen one day, Grimmjow had settled down considerably and was ‘biting at the bit’ a lot less than he used to. He even followed orders better. He still bellyached loudly about them, but he followed them.

The city came into sight and Ajuga contemplated her options for the rest of the day. She knew her mother was meeting with her friends and the lesson had ended much sooner than she had anticipated. While she wouldn’t mind seeing her mother’s little circle of people, she did have others she wanted to visit and now would be the perfect opportunity to catch up with some of them, especially those she hadn’t had a chance to see in a while, at least outside the 4th Division. Besides, she needed to keep her stalking skills sharp and nothing put those to the test like sneaking past the most difficult of patrols, the ones surrounding Aizen’s Palace. As far as she knew, not one of the guards had ever discovered the route she used to infiltrate the place. Nor had they ever detected her while she was there.

She had to make a side trip through the markets first, however. Ajuga had learned a few disturbing things during Gin’s last stint at the 4th Division. She couldn’t believe that all Aizen allowed him to eat was a bowl of simple rice every day. Well, she vowed that today would be different. The closest market had exactly what she was looking for and she made her purchase hurriedly, not wanting the food to get too cold before she could give it to its intended recipient. Then it was on to the Palace.

Thankfully, Gin wasn’t all that hard to find, tidying his mistresses’ rooms. She waited until he was engaged in a task that wouldn’t result in damage to him or anything else in the room when she made herself known and had nothing in his hands that would break if dropped. Ajuga decided to pounce during a brief moment when he’d placed the broom he carried against a wall and went to retrieve a nearby dustpan.

“Hiya Gin-san!” she greeted him happily, holding back a giggle as he jumped in surprise.

“Ajuga-chan,” he greeted her with a thin smile, once he’d gathered his wits. “What brings you by today?”

“I wanted to see how you were doing. You looked pretty sick last time I saw you,” she replied, the concern she felt apparent as she said this. “Are you feeling better?”

He gave her a smile and said, “Much better, thank you Ajuga-chan.”

“You smell alright, I mean, still sad and stuff, but not as bad as in the past,” she told him, looking the thin Shinigami over critically.

“Well, that _is_ good news. I don’t like being sad either,” he assured her before his eyes moved to the paper bag she held.

Ajuga also noticed where his attention had wandered and she walked up to hand it to him. “Oh, I brought you something, since you won’t get better just eating stupid, gross, plain rice. I hope you like them.”

She held the bag out in front of her, and the smell of roasted meat wafted from it. Gin took the bag from her hand hesitantly before opening it up to look inside. His eyes widened in surprise as he started at the contents.

“I know you like those gross persimmon things, but those won’t put any meat on your bones, and you desperately need meat. So there you go. I brought you meat, even if it is cooked. Eat!” she ordered in a mock-stern voice.

Gin didn’t need telling twice as he sat down in the floor beside her and tore into the charred meat on a stick. Ajuga didn’t know what he liked, so she had ordered the vendor to give her several different sorts. She knew the bag contained chicken and pork, but wasn’t sure about the others. One looked like an eel and she’d wrinkled her nose at it, but Gin appeared to relish it, so that was all that mattered. In fact, he didn’t seem to care about _what_ kind of flesh was on the sticks, just that it was hot and filling. To Ajuga, Gin ate them in the same way she’d seen too thin stray dogs tear into half-rotted scraps of garbage and that thought felt like a surprisingly sharp stab to the gut.

_No infraction warrants a punishment like this_ _…’_

When he’d polished off the last one, he closed his eyes and patted his stomach, saying, “Thank you Ajuga-chan…”

“Aizen should really see about feeding you better, you are almost nothing more than skin and bones,” she complained, not liking the realization that this was probably the most contented she’d seen him… well, ever. Gin must have noticed the way she regarded him, because he gave her a half-smile, as if to try to reassure her.

“It’s how he likes me. Szayel’s in the same boat.”

“Yeah, but Szay has more meat on him than you do. Granted, not by much, but still…”

“Hmm,” he agreed. The non-committal sound didn’t make her feel any better.

They sat in silence for a moment while she wrapped the now-empty skewers in their bag so she could take the evidence with her. It wouldn’t do for her to bring him help, only to end up getting him into more trouble. Looking around the room, her eyes settled on his small sleeping area.

“I noticed a while ago your cubby has a sword sitting in it all the time. Is that a Zanpakuto like the one ‘take-ji has?” she asked curiously, getting up to walk over to it for a better look.

“Yes, that is Shinso. Aizen-Kami has forbidden me to touch him unless I meet certain conditions,” he sighed resignedly.

“Can I meet him or her?” Ajuga asked excitedly. “The only one I ever got to meet was Sogyo no Kotowari. They were fun!”

Gin gave her a weird look, one that kind of seemed to flicker between surprise, shock, and a few other she didn’t recognize. He almost seemed _scandalized_ by her request and she suddenly realized that she’d stepped over some invisible line she hadn’t known was there. Ukitake hadn’t shown any reluctance to show the children living at the Estate the manifestation of his Zanpakuto, but then, Ukitake was someone she considered ‘family’. Why it would bother Gin so much escaped Ajuga, but watching his reaction told her she’d inadvertently made a mistake.

“It’s na’ something tha’s really done…” he began, then paused suddenly and turned to look as the sword “…however, it seems Shinso is alright w’it,” Gin finished, sounding astonished.

He walked over to the cubby and rested his hand on the sheath of his blade. A moment later, a small white fox appeared. Like her owner, Shinso looked far too skinny and her fur was bedraggled, a reflection of their mutual soul’s condition.

“Oh, Gin-san…” Ajuga sighed, rushing forward to pick Shinso up and twirl her about before cradling the small fox in her arms.

“You poor thing! You’re starving too, and just look at the state of your fur! This is not right,” she declared unhappily.

She sat on the ground and cradled Shinso in her lap, stroking the small creature’s coat and promising to try and get them some real food because this was just abysmal, a true crime. They talked for a short while, with Shinso perched in her lap as she watched him continue with his chores.

Ajuga noticed that, even as a little child, her visits always made him smell happy, or at least, happier. It was another reason she continued her stealth trips into Aizen’s lair. If Gin had been a member of her pack, he would still be on the bottom of the heap as far as rank, probably, but he’d at least be healthy and fed and his Zanpakuto wouldn’t look like a half-starved kitten. Her hatred of Aizen went up another notch. Grimmjow once explained to his daughter that any Alpha that let the lowest ranking member of his pack starve in such a manner in favour of hoarding the good stuff for him or herself didn’t deserve to have the rank of Alpha. A good Alpha, Grimmjow told her, attracted followers. Starving them into compliance made for a weak pack and a weak pack didn’t last long.

Ajuga detected Aizen’s return earlier than she would have liked and regrettably had to leave. She most certainly didn’t want to risk Aizen catching her here and having to see Gin punished for something he had no control over. With one last scratch behind Shinso’s ears, the fox spirit vanished and Ajuga retreated with another promise to try and smuggle Gin some real food.

The next person on her ‘to visit list’ was safer, as his master was much easier to avoid. One could often smell him coming a mile away even without a working nose, thanks to the brute’s chronically poor hygiene. She didn’t make it to the Kuchiki estate though. Ajuga could tell when she got close that Byakuya wasn’t there because his scent was much too weak. Happy with the sudden and unexpected challenge of stalking a target through a million other competing scents, she fixed her attention on his trail. It was rare for him to leave the Estate for anything other than required meetings and for the 2nd Division offices but he did do it from time to time.

She followed his scent through the streets and into one of the more upscale markets. There were a few other Arrancar here, none of them foolish enough to give her trouble or anything more than a nod of acknowledgement. Her nose told her that had stopped at a few stalls based on the strength of his scent. The vendors were used to her by now and a few offered her smiles and a couple greeted her respectfully by name. She could have asked if they had seen Byakuya and what direction he went, but it was far more satisfying to search for him herself.

Unfortunately, it was getting late and she still hadn’t found her prey yet. That’s was fine though. ‘Take-ji said he expected Byakuya to return to work the next day and Ajuga could tell by the older Shinigami’s body language that he was as relieved and excited as she was about that. She could always accompany Jushiro to work and see how Byakuya was doing tomorrow.


	23. Peace and Disquiet

Jushiro lamented many things about the Gotei 13’s defeat, the fall of the Spirit King and the subsequent enslavement of the Soul Society and its officers. Chief among them was his inability to do anything to help many of his fellow captives. However, if he was to rate _his_ experiences as a ‘pet,’ he would have to say that he was much better off than many of those who found themselves Claimed by the Arrancar.

Starrk had never raised his hand to either himself or Nanao. Instead, most of the pain dealt to him over the last fifteen years came courtesy of Aizen, usually in the form of a lashing for speaking up during non-Shinigami related meetings where he was expected to sit there, remain silent and look pretty as Starrk’s ‘pet.’ The stripes Aizen gave him were neither deep nor numerous, as Aizen usually recognized the value of whatever it was he was trying to convey at the time. However, according to Aizen, ‘rules were rules’ even if a good reason existed to break them. The worst punishment Aizen had ever delivered to him involved his lost eye, slashed out by the tyrant when he’d tried to beg for leniency and a little mercy for those suffering under masters more brutal than Starrk. While he was grateful he hadn’t lost both eyes, it was another in a long list of grievances he had against the usurper.

While there were plenty of bad memories since the day Soul Society fell, there were also bright spots. For Jushiro, most of them involved Ajuga, Hana and even Lilynette. While he hadn’t expected anything good from Starrk when the Primera initially Claimed him, both halves of the First treated him fairly. In fact, Starrk left him alone for the most part. He asked each time if he truly desired for the Claim to be refreshed instead of simply raping Jushiro. When they did spend time in one another’s company, the experience was pleasant, like now.

The board between them was almost full of stones, indicating their game was nearly over. It looked as if Starrk would win this round, but that didn’t surprise him too much. Jushiro had never been as good at these games as Shunsui and Starrk appeared to be yet another master of the strategy game. Jushiro still won on occasion, but more often than not, he lost. Still, he enjoyed these quiet moments.

“You’re troubled by something,” Starrk commented, placing a stone on the board before looking up at him.

“Is it that obvious?” Jushiro sighed.

“It is to one who knows you.”

“I suppose my apprehension and worry is coming through the Claim as well.”

“Yes, though it isn’t terribly burdensome.” Starrk offered him a brief, wry smile. “What bothers you?”

Jushiro let out a long breath and conceded the game. He could tell by counting the points that Starrk had definitely won, with no way for him to recover. He might as well talk to the Primera. Doing so might ease his fears, if only for the time it took to air them.

“Kuchiki Byakuya is slated to return to work tomorrow. No one has seen him since he was released from the 4th Division and I am worried about what Yammy might have done to him in retaliation for Aizen’s punishment.”

At least his fretful admission fell on receptive ears. Starrk made a small noise that urged him to continue.

“I know Aizen-kami punished him for hospitalizing Byakuya for defying the order to the Espada to keep their…” Jushiro hesitated over the next word, truly hating it but unable to deny that it was what his surviving fellow officers had been reduced to “’pets’ in combat-ready condition. I don’t believe the Tenth is the sort of person that appreciates a slap on the wrist and I fear that Aizen-Kami’s interference might only make things worse for Byakuya.”

He sighed dejectedly, rubbing a hand over his blind eye under the patch. However, he wasn’t thinking of his injury. The memory of hauling a thoroughly traumatized and near-hysterical Abarai Renji back to the Science Division, after Yammy had gloated about what he’d forced the younger Shinigami’s walking shell to do to his former Taichou wasn’t anything he’d ever forget, to his sorrow. No one had seen the former Fukutaichou for over a month after that. When he had emerged, the redhead was much thinner, but only after Szayel had called in Karin to deal with his ‘pet.’ She hadn’t elaborated and the utter awfulness of what had happened kept Jushiro from discussing it with anyone, including those present at the time. Yammy had made his crimes against the officers of the lost 6th Division known. Worse, he could only imagine what might have happened to Byakuya after that horrible meeting.

Starrk was silent for a time before speaking, turning one of the game stones over in his hands, his gray eyes following each side as his fingers twirled it.

“I wish I could offer you comforting words, but you are correct. However, Yammy, as unthinking as he can be at times, would not so readily forget Aizen’s punishment. I am sure that Byakuya will return to work tomorrow sans injuries. For a time, at least, the Tenth will adhere to Aizen’s wishes.”

Starrk frowned and hesitated for a moment, as if debating on adding more to his sentence, and after a moment, his gaze met Jushiro’s concerned one.

“What I am about to say goes no further than this. You are not to speak of it.”

Jushiro felt the Claim tighten around him, enough to serve as a warning. The sensation was very foreign, for Starrk almost never used it against him. In the few instances he had, it had been to keep Jushiro from doing or saying anything he felt might worsen a situation, or harm them both. Perhaps this was one of those times as well.

“Aizen-Kami asked me if I would be interested in taking over Kuchiki’s Claim should Yammy prove too destructive towards his pet. For now, Kami-sama values your companion’s combat skills more than he values those that Yammy provides.”

Starrk’s declaration momentarily shocked him. What followed was a brief, almost violent surge of hope that something such as that might come to pass. The Primera wasn’t the type to waste time and energy on lying, so that meant that Aizen really had broached the subject with Starrk. Jushiro desperately wanted to ask more, but the Claim made sure his mouth remained closed as Starrk’s command had forbidden any speech about it at all. He was able to ask one somewhat tangential question, though.

“What about Nanao?”

“She is technically my fraccion, just as Hana is to Harribel. She also doesn’t have a Bankai and isn’t ‘Taichou-class,’ for all her rank. Would you care to play another game?” Starrk asked, indicating the topic was now verboten and the conversation over.

Jushiro shook his head and gave the board a half-smile.

“No, I think I will retire for the evening.”

Starrk nodded and yawned before rising to return to his own quarters, leaving Jushiro to clean up their game, even though manners dictated that the winner retire the board and the pieces after the match. Jushiro didn’t mind, as it let him mull over what Starrk had told him.

Still, as promising as the thought was, it made it no easier for Jushiro to fall asleep that night. Morning found him still apprehensive about what he might find when he arrived at his office. Starrk’s little revelation generated more questions than answers. He had no idea what kind of damage Yammy might have done to the noble in the time Byakuya had been home. Such a transfer would mean another round of brutality for the former Taichou in order for the transfer to occur, and he had no idea how far Aizen would let things go before stepping in and forcing Yammy to give up his pet.

Byakuya arrived right on time and seemed to be fine. He didn’t walk as if he was in any pain and the revealing outfit he wore, consisting of nothing more than a pair of black leather pants and calf high, skintight boots, revealed no additional damage to his body. There was nothing to indicate that Yammy had physically hurt the noble between his discharge from the 4th Division and now.

“Good morning, Byakuya,” he said warmly, genuinely glad to see the other.

Byakuya gave him brief nod and went to his desk, eyeing the large pile of papers that had backlogged while he’d been out. Without any outward signs of frustration or unhappiness, he took the first sheet off the top and set to work as if it had been just another day and he hadn’t spent weeks recovering from life-threatening injuries. The other seemed… subdued, but that was the extent of things as far as Jushiro could tell.

Satisfied that Yammy hadn’t done anything to Byakuya after Aizen’s discipline, Jushiro went to work on the large pile of forms on his own desk. Ajuga arrived at noon with his medicinal tea and lunch for the both of them. It was true that his tuberculosis was in remission and had been for some time, but no one wanted to take any chances, considering the length of time he’d suffered from the ailment. Ajuga still took being in charge of his medicinal tea intake very seriously and if she couldn’t get it to him, she would have someone else deliver it, just to make sure he received his daily dosage.

“I got your tea ‘take-ji!” she announced happily as she came through the door, a tray with two cups of steaming tea on it and two stacked boxes of hot food. His stomach reminded him that it had been nearly five hours since his last meal and he gave the girl a look of utter gratitude.

“Thank you Ajuga-chan,” he offered her a smile and before noticing that she hadn’t come alone. Trailing into the room behind her was Renji with a little girl hiding behind his legs, wings fluttering slightly in agitation. Now this was a surprise and he wondered what brought Abarai Renji and his young charge to his office.

“She’s the prettiest thing I have ever seen!” Mila Rose exclaimed in delight as she cooed over Vindula. The little girl flitted happily through the air, dancing and showing off about five feet off of the ground.

“Who knew Szayel-sama could produce such a lovely little girl?” Apache agreed. Her mismatched eyes were wide and her hands clasped in front of her.

“Do you really think I am pretty?” Vindula asked the two older females as she landed before the three fraccion and their mistress.

Renji’s original intent that morning had been to bring Vindula to this park so she could practice her flying, something difficult to do in the confines of the Science Division itself. Her wings and the underlying muscles were now strong enough to get her light body aloft and a whole new chasm of child-related paranoia now yawned before the man put in charge of her.

He’d been horrified to find out that she’d managed to sneak away with Ajuga and Diaemus while he’d been busy burning Locusts to a crisp with Zabimaru and electrocuting beetles trapped between his Bankai’s links. A million and one worst-case scenarios had flashed before his eyes when Szayel broke the news to him the next day and he’d turned on his heel and helped himself to Szayel’s stash of sake. When the Espada made an outraged noise behind him as he’d cracked the bottle, Renji had fished out a second vessel from the cupboard, poured the Espada a draught and wordlessly handed it to the scientist. Szayel had stared at it, dumbfounded, and then accepted it and both of them partook of the alcohol, the universal soother of paternal nerves and friend to nannies everywhere. It wasn’t his normal breakfast, but at that point, Renji didn’t care.

Of course, Renji was well aware of how much trouble he’d managed to get into around the same age and tried to come up with a training plan that would give Vindula a goal to work towards that did not involve getting anywhere near the Swarm and would help her gain some basic control over her new aerial abilities. The park he’d chosen had a number of items he hoped she could use as a makeshift ‘obstacle course’ while trying to remain aloft, including several benches, a play area, several fountains and a long walkway full of leafless cherry trees.

He’d walked her through the course once, and she’d made her way through one and one half runs of it when they came across Harribel and her fraccion apparently enjoying what looked like a leisurely stroll with Toshiro, Ajuga and Hana. Renji guessed that Toshiro and Hana were on their way back to the 3rd Division after a lunch break or just heading out for one and had met up with his Mistress, her fraccion and Hana’s friend, Ajuga. The weather was relatively warm for early February and it looked like they might just have an early spring this year.

“You are absolutely beautiful!” Sung Sun assured her and Vindula giggled. “I wonder if Harribel-sama’s child would look as adorable as you do.”

Renji nearly sputtered, managed to change it to a discreet cough and shot a look at Toshiro, who suddenly seemed very much like a deer caught in the crosshairs of a Living World hunting rifle. Renji didn’t blame him. The other young man did not look ready for the challenges of fatherhood. He barely looked ready for lunch. Renji knew, on a rational level, that Toshiro had to be sleeping with Harribel, since that was how Claims worked, but the image of the Third Espada and ‘the kid’ intertwined in such an intimate manner was still a little disquieting, despite how much Toshiro had grown in the last fifteen years and how much things had changed.

Vindula, on the other hand, loved the attention her fellow female Arrancar gave her. Her multi-coloured wings fluttered in a dazzling display as they caught and reflected the pale winter sunlight, setting off another round of adoration from the three fraccion. Even Harribel’s eyes followed the girl as she did a small pirouette in mid-air, a turn he’d been working on with her for two weeks now, mostly to incorporate as an evasion manoeuvre if needed. If Renji didn’t know better, he might almost label the emotion he saw in them ‘wistfulness.’ She said nothing though, content to let her girls do the complimenting.

“Where were you two going?” Hana asked Renji as he shook his head to rid himself of any and all sordid mental pictures of Toshiro and Harribel, mainly because there were several attributes Harribel and Nel had in common and he didn’t need to torture himself in that manner. It would be a little over five months before he could see her again or talk to her and he wasn’t sure he wanted to risk giving Karin a letter to give to Yoruichi to deliver to his mate. He missed her badly and Harribel’s curves weren’t helping matters.

“Uh… nowhere, I brought Vindula-chan here so she could fly and enjoy the weather.” he answered, focusing on the young woman before him instead of dwelling on things he couldn’t change.

It was still hard to believe Hana was the late Kyoraku-Taichou’s daughter. He could see Nanao in her, since she’d inherited most of her mother’s looks, but it was harder to see the late Taichou’s contribution. Considering Shunsui’s reputation, perhaps that was a good thing. Although, maybe there was a bit of her father lurking beneath that calm, efficient surface, as Renji distinctly recalled hearing about an expedition out in one of the Rukongai Districts during the last Claim Meeting, the same one during which the Defence Net had fallen.

“Are you both returning to work, or leaving for lunch?” he asked.

“Back to work,” Hana answered, waving a folder she carried in her hands.

“There’s been an increase in the paperwork since the Defence Net fell, and each battle causes us to fall farther behind,” Toshiro added irritably, then said in a much lower voice, “I’m tempted to take a match to the whole thing if this keeps up.”

If it was one thing Renji didn’t miss about being an active Shinigami it was the endless stacks of paperwork and the lengths he’d had to go to in order to avoid doing it. He never did understand how his Taichou could calmly sit for hours at his desk and work at it contentedly. It usually gave him the mental equivalent of a rash.

“I was going over to see ‘take-ji to make sure he takes a break _and_ his medicine. He almost always forgets to take one or the other, or both.” Ajuga then paused and admitted, “I also wanted to see how Bya-san was doing. I haven’t seen him since he was still in the 4th Division.”

Renji felt a jolt of pain and took a deep breath to counter it. He had also seen Byakuya once while he was in the 4th Division, and the man had looked like hell. He wished he could have visited longer or more often. However, Nel’s warning to stay away from his former superior, as attention from anyone other than the Tenth made Yammy more violent towards his Claimed target, was one he heeded, no matter how much he wished he could do something, anything, for Byakuya. There had to be a way to make up for what he… no, his body had done to the noble. In the end, he could only show Byakuya that he hadn’t allowed Yammy’s words to beat him. He’d done it to prove that, as Karin had once put it, the ‘walking pile of dog shit’ hadn’t won yet.

It had taken him a long time to recover after learning about that incident, however. Even though it hadn’t been his fault, even though he had no memory of it, the fact that he had been used to violently assault the man he had grown to respect had nearly destroyed him. In fact, if it were not for Nel, and the overwhelming love of the twins, he probably would have never gotten over it.

“Is Kuchiki-san all better then?” Vindula asked curiously, golden eyes going to Ajuga “…’cause he didn’t look so good when Renji-ji brought us to see him.”

“‘taki-ji said he was coming into work today, so hopefully Bya-san is feeling better. Did you want to come see him with me? ‘taki-ji always has sweets hidden in his desk drawer,” she added slyly.

The hopeful, big-eyed look Vindula gave Renji, (more over the thought of treats than seeing how Byakuya was doing, he was sure) dismantled any argument against going. Besides, he too wanted to see how his former superior fared. This was a chance for him to do so and Yammy was unlikely to learn about it. While he felt Nel’s Claim constrict a little, it didn’t clamp down tightly to prevent him from moving and he decided to risk it.

“I have some reports for Ukitake-Taichou. If you are going over there, can you bring them to him?” Toshiro asked.

“Sure!” Ajuga agreed.

“I will see you after work, Toshiro,” Harribel declared, placing a hand on the young man’s shoulder briefly, meeting his eyes for a moment before motioning to her girls.

Toshiro gave his mistress a nod and they went their separate ways, although Harribel’s fraccion did force Renji to promise to bring Vindula by some other time so they could fuss over the young girl. Vindula seemed more than happy to agree for him and he let out a sigh. He’d need to clear that with Szayel first. Still, at least he knew Vindula was somewhat safe with Harribel and her fraccion, and it would do the little girl good to find some female companionship outside of that of her mother and the few visits Hana and Ajuga managed. There weren’t a lot of female Arrancar and Harribel had proven she was trustworthy last year, when she and Toshiro intervened in the attack on the little girl.

“So, how long were you grounded for?” Ajuga asked Vindula.

“I wasn’t,” the little winged girl answered cheerfully. “Papa said you were to blame for dragging me out there, lectured me for two hours about keeping safe and away from the dangerous places, and then praised me for helping save Karin-sama.”

She sounded pleased with herself. Renji looked heavenward.

_He also put away a few rounds of sake with me, but you, child, don_ _’_ _t need to know about that._

Ajuga’s expression soured, but she immediately wiped it off her face when Renji caught her eye. While his status as the lowest of the low in whatever hierarchy existed between Grimmjow, Starrk and Szayel’s respective households meant he couldn’t really rebuke her verbally, he hoped she understood what the cold look in his eyes meant. It seemed that she did, as she swallowed whatever she’d been about to say in favour of something appropriately contrite.

“Lucky. Papa was impressed, but Mama was pissed. Though, after speaking to Szay I understand why she was so upset now, even if it is irritating to always be forced to guard a building so far behind the lines.”

Renji understood her frustrations, even if he wanted to smack her for her actions. He’d argued for hours with Szayel to let him return to the fight after the Swarm put the Net out of commission. The only thing on the scientist’s mind had been the safety of his children. While Renji would be the first person to worry about the twins, Szayel’s lab was the most secure place anyone could be presently.

 _Which is an odd and frightening notion,_ Renji couldn’t help but to think. _Then again, its protections only last as long as one actually_ stays _in the building._

The girls chatted happily as they walked to the 3rd Division while Toshiro and Renji trailed silently after, content to watch and listen. It didn’t take long to reach their destination and soon Renji found himself on his way to the 2nd Division with a large pile of papers while Ajuga patiently answered questions about what it was like to hang out with Harribel and her fraccion.

The more Ajuga spoke of Harribel and what the often quiet and mysterious Espada was like, the more Renji couldn’t help but to think of another Arrancar, a woman eerily similar in temperament, intellect and, apparently, philosophy as well as in power and rank. She held his heart and his Claim and made it possible for him to ferret out as much information as he could to hand to the Escapees and Yoruichi. Even though he couldn’t feel her the way she could feel him, he still sent a wave of love down the Claim to his mate, hoping she could feel it, somehow, from a Realm away.

In his mind, late summer couldn’t arrive fast enough.

They arrived at the 2nd Division and Ajuga led them, not to the office, but to the cafeteria. The staff clearly expected her for they had a boiling kettle of water waiting for her as well as two trays of food for the acting commanders. Vindula watched curiously as Ajuga pulled out several pouches of herbs from the bag tied around her waist and measured each herb out exactly before mixing the tea. She did it with such practiced motions that Renji knew she had to have been doing it for some time.

“So, for sure Ukitake-san has sweets in his drawer?”

Vindula seemed to need some reassurance where the candy was concerned as Ajuga, balancing the tray with both lunches and the pot of tea with two teacups, led them towards the office.

“Filled to the brim,” Ajuga swore to her. “All different types too,” she added with a wink.

The older girl didn’t bother to knock on the door when she reached it, and simply used a foot to slide it open.

“I got your tea ‘take-ji!” she announced happily, as she came through the door with her arms loaded.

“Thank you Ajuga-chan,” Jushiro replied, looking up at them and smiling warmly.

Jushiro’s remaining eye lit up with genuine pleasure before settling on Vindula, who was, despite her excitement at the prospect of treats, hiding shyly behind his hakama. “And who is this charming, beautiful, young lady?” the white-haired Taichou inquired, even though Renji was certain Jushiro knew exactly who Vindula was as they had seen each other at each of Aizen’s ‘family get together’ over the years and she was no stranger at Jushiro’s estate, thanks to Karin’s proxy Claim on Szayel.

“Vindula Grantz,” Vindula introduced herself shyly, wings fluttering behind her nervously, and then frowned. “You know me!”

Jushiro’s expression was one of slightly exaggerated shock and awe. Renji saw it and while his eye twitched, he prided himself on not laughing out loud right then and there.

“No, that can’t be! Why, the last time I saw her, she was just a little bitty thing! You’ve grown so much I hardly recognized you! By the way, my dear, do you like sweets?” Jushiro asked innocently, pulling open the very drawer Ajuga had mentioned.

Vindula’s eyes brightened and her shyness disappeared as she raced over to stare at the treasure trove presented to her. The shameless sugar-pusher regarded her indulgently as she looked at the bags of candy filling the drawer.

“Not too many,” Renji warned. The last thing he needed was Vindula in the middle of a sugar high, when her normal high was frenetic enough. “We’re going to have lunch soon.”

During all this, Ajuga had set down Jushiro’s plate and forced a mug of tea into his hand. After seeing to Jushiro, she moved over to deliver Byakuya his lunch. While Vindula tried to choose between lollipops and peppermints, Renji finally dared to look out of the corner of his eye at his former Taichou.

What he saw made his heart stop, grief threatening to overwhelm him.

He had known Byakuya for years and after Ichigo had kicked both of their respective asses during the young man’s attempt to stop Rukia’s execution, the two 6th Division officers had grown somewhat closer as colleagues. Renji had spent most of his career as a Shinigami studying the Kuchiki noble, searching for any sign of weakness he could exploit in a bid to get his childhood friend back. As such, Renji knew Byakuya like no other person. He knew the man better than the members of the noble’s own family did, with the possible exception of Rukia. Thus, as he stared painfully at the dark-haired man inadequately dressed for the season, sitting silently behind his desk, he knew that what remained of Byakuya’s sprit had finally been shattered.

The small hint of defiant, unyielding fire in those slate grey eyes was absent. So was his usually formal, upright posture that could make one feel inadequate just by looking at it. Moreover, while Byakuya did look up and offer Ajuga a slight smile for delivering his lunch, it was brittle, as hollow as the growing feeling in Renji’s gut. Everything about Byakuya literally screamed ‘ _this is wrong!_ ’ to the redhead.

He felt his throat close up and suddenly the office in which he stood seemed to lack sufficient air.

After fifteen years of non-stop rape, beatings, and abuse, Yammy had finally won, had finally broken the head of the noble Kuchiki house, and there was nothing, but nothing that Renji could do about it.

His eyes shifted back to where Vindula and Jushiro rooted through the drawer of candy. The smile wasn’t even forced and Renji concluded that Jushiro was truly in a good mood. Renji could only assume that Ukitake Jushiro was not as familiar with Byakuya as Renji was and therefore, hadn’t noticed anything amiss.

“Bya-san, are you alright?” Ajuga asked quietly, so quietly that Renji almost missed it and he turned his attention back to where Ajuga hovered worriedly over Byakuya.

 _She sees it too, or senses it somehow,_ he realized, wondering how Ajuga, a Hollow-hybrid, could see what someone as experienced as Jushiro could not. Maybe it had to do with some Arrancar instinct that allowed them to detect any weaknesses in their prey, and in Renji’s opinion, Byakuya was exceedingly weak right now.

‘I am fine’ Byakuya wrote out on his chalkboard.

 _BULLSHIT!_ Renji roared in his mind, but mindful of Vindula’s presence, kept his inner raving to himself, as rage and despair warred with one another for the upper hand within him. If it weren’t for Nel’s Claim and the fear of reprisals against the twins if he went through with what he desperately wanted to do now, he would be halfway to the Kuchiki Estate right now, ready to take large chunks out of the Tenth with Zabimaru.

Ajuga looked like she was about to argue about his answer as well, before also casting a glance Vindula’s way. Renji thought she might have some similar self-censorship.

“I was hoping you would have time for some calligraphy after work today,” she said instead, apparently trying a different angle. “It’s been a while since the last time we had a chance to practice and I miss spending time in your gardens.”

Any lingering doubts Renji had about his former Taichou’s state of mind died as the noble hesitated as he wrote out his next answer. Even the kanji seemed off. They were different somehow, less refined. The result was messy wavering white lines on the dark surface, a dirty scrawl compared to his usual handwriting.

It was as if an impostor wrote the words.

‘I am afraid I will not be able to do so’

Ajuga looked crestfallen, but she put on a cheerful face as Vindula gleefully ran up to her with a handful of candy. Renji hoped that Byakuya would at least look up at him, acknowledge his presence as he had in the 4th Division, but the noble averted his eyes, staring down at the food Ajuga had brought him. Not once had Byakuya’s eyes shifted his way and Renji had no doubt that was deliberate. Whatever Yammy had done to break Byakuya, he had done so completely.

Renji suddenly felt nauseous.

“Vindula-chan, we should probably get going. We need to get some lunch into you.”

Renji tore his eyes from Byakuya and looked at Vindula, summoning his best, no-nonsense look as a way of masking what was really going on in his head.

He had to get out of here and fast, the urge was overwhelming as the surge of guilt powering it. Renji didn’t want to look at his former superior any longer, to know that he had played a part in fracturing Byakuya’s spirit, even if he hadn’t known about it at the time. He couldn’t even bring himself to notice or care how much candy Vindula clenched in her little fingers or how he would deal with an Arrancar child on a sugar high an hour from now. All he could see was the broken noble sitting behind his desk, his eyes on his paperwork, his backbone bent and Renji had to fight the sudden need to escape Jushiro’s office.

It was as if their visit in the 4th Division had never happened.

“I guess,” she pouted. “Goodbye, Ukitake-san, Kuchiki-san. Thank you for the treats!”

Vindula bowed politely and properly.

“Any time,” Jushiro smiled at her. “You know you and your brother are always welcome at the Estate too!”

Renji just had the presence of mind to numbly hand over the pile of papers in his hand, bow before leading Vindula out of the building, and make his way back out onto the street. Once there, he took several deep breaths of the cool air and tried not to think of what he’d just done as running. Of course, that’s exactly what it was, running. He added some self-loathing to his deteriorating mood. Renji found that he couldn’t deal with the sight of a defeated man he had once thought unconquerable.

Suddenly, the bright, sunny day didn’t seem so wonderful and the small amount of hope he’d had that Kuchiki Byakuya could hold out against Yammy until help arrived turned to cold cinders. Vindula could only frown as her caregiver crouched down, in the middle of a busy street, and pulled her into a tight hug, his eyes squeezed shut and salt tears sparkling at their corners.

“Well, is there another day I can come over and we can practice?” Ajuga asked drawing Jushiro’s attention to the conversation. With Vindula and Renji gone, there were fewer distractions and he was able to focus on the remaining people sharing the office with him.

Byakuya paused in his meal, and then wrote out a message on the chalkboard. Jushiro couldn’t read it from this angle, but whatever the answer was upset Ajuga tremendously. The young girl’s eyes began brimming with tears, and she suddenly fled without another word.

“Ajuga-chan?” Jushiro called after her, but she was already gone, not even closing the door behind her.

“What was that about?” he asked Byakuya, hoping the noble would let him know what had suddenly upset Ajuga enough to bolt from the office.

Byakuya didn’t answer in any of the ways he still could. Instead, the noble took his cup of tea and stared down into it for a moment before taking a drink and returning to work as if nothing had happened, his meal barely touched.

“Byakuya,” Jushiro pressed once more, but the other remained silent. He thought about demanding an explanation, for it really took something big to upset Ajuga, but decided against it for now. When Byakuya clammed up like that, there was no getting anything out of him.

 _Even if I did know what was wrong, it is not as if I could do anything about it anyway,_ he thought sadly, his hand going to his missing eye, a souvenir from the last time he had tried to interfere on Byakuya’s behalf. _Next time, Aizen might decide to punish someone other than me._

His good mood fell flat, even with the wonderful little visit he’d had with Szayel’s daughter. Vindula was as sweetly charming as Hana and Ajuga had been at that age, and he found himself missing those days. Both were getting older and had begun to see things that the adults in their lives had gone to great lengths to try to hide from them, or hide as best they could.

Jushiro wondered just how long it would be before the two would finally see the unvarnished truth of what life was like under Aizen’s tyrannical control for the majority of the Soul Society’s denizens. He feared that day wasn’t far off and wished he could do anything he could to postpone it.

Unfortunately, no one could have predicted how quickly that moment would arrive.


	24. Evening Out

It was so wonderful visiting with the rest of the girls, if only for a few hours. Rangiku badly needed time to socialize with someone other than Tesra, Tatsuki and her ‘master.’ She needed time away from the house that didn’t involve cleaving through flying insects with Haineko or some other form of actual work. Nnoitra had granted her more freedom of movement over the years, but no matter how long her leash might have stretched over the last few years, the ever-present reminder of her status as a possession rubbed against the calloused skin of her ankle. No amount of salve would dissolve that callus as long as it remained there.

Fifteen years ago, at this time of day, she would most likely be lounging in her Taichou’s office, sipping a cup of the stash she kept in various places in Toshiro’s office, reading the latest fashion magazines from the Living World and plotting how much time she thought she could steal from her next mission there to shop. The music accompanying her activities involved the white-haired boy behind the 10th Division Taichou’s desk snarling at her to finish her paperwork. Now, as she walked with Tatsuki and Orihime back to the dwelling she shared with Nnoitra, she sadly observed that the only thing she really had on her mind was that it was high time to get started on making her ‘master’s’ dinner.

Well, maybe that wasn’t entirely true. There _was_ the budding conspiracy with regard to Soi Fon’s pregnancy with which to occupy her mind and her time. Tatsuki broached the subject with Karin, seeking her assistance in the matter. To think that Ggio had approached Tesra and Tatsuki to adopt the child he was having with Soi Fon! The announcement and subsequent request for additional help relieved every woman at the small party and Karin promised to make sure that Szayel delivered the child safely into Tatsuki and Tesra’s custody. Orihime, being the one most likely to see Unohana first, offered to let the 4th Division Taichou know about the situation. No doubt, she would be just as pleased by this idea. Rangiku understood that while the majority of the women there had relatively little power to stop Barragan outright, the act of plotting all of the ways that they could try to ensure the baby’s safety as well as prevent the Second from interfering made them feel less helpless.

“Well, here’s my stop,” Rangiku sighed as she stared at the house she shared with Nnoitra. In the back of her mind, she could feel Haineko bristle in unhappiness.

_Faugh. Back to the kennel with us_ _…_

“As always, it’s a pleasure to see you!” Orihime gave the taller woman a hug.

While Nnoitra had allowed her to help at the 4th Division after a battle once he’d finished with her, the two women were frequently too busy working to save lives and take away pain to socialize with one another. At the end of their shift, they were too exhausted for more than a cursory conversation, especially Orihime. It also didn’t help that Orihime worked in the section of the 4th Division that dealt with critical cases while Rangiku spent her time handling simpler injuries. The two areas were on the opposite sides of the Division, curtailing their visiting time.

“You too,” Rangiku said, returning her hug.

Both women separated and she turned her attention to Tatsuki.

“Are you going to come in for a bit?”

Tatsuki shrugged and nodded, giving a little stretch as she did so.

“I might as well. I can pick up the manga you’ve finished and bring them home with me.”

Orihime quickly gave her childhood friend a similar hug and continued on her way home, waving until she was out of sight while Tatsuki and Rangiku walked into the house. With a soft sigh of disgust, she slid her shoes off and reattached the little golden chain to her ankle cuff. There were two things that she’d never been able to get Nnoitra to stop doing: partaking of her whenever and however he wanted and forcing her to remain chained up once she walked through the front door. She wasn’t crazy enough to try to bring up the first subject, and try as she might she’d never been able to negotiate away the latter.

“So, what are you going to make for dinner?” Tatsuki asked as they entered the kitchen. Rangiku pulled open the refrigerator and stared at the contents, trying to assemble a meal from them in her head.

“I am not sure yet,” she admitted. “Do you have any ideas?”

The front door opened and they felt the shift in reiatsu as their respective men entered the house. It was unusual for Nnoitra to come home early and Rangiku, alarmed, wondered if they’d lost track of time at the gathering. A quick glance at the clock told her that her sense of time wasn’t off. Nnoitra was, indeed, home early.

“Oi, wench, you back yet?” Nnoitra called out.

“Yes, I am here Nnoitra-sama,” she responded.

“Good, go get changed into something nice,” he ordered.

“Yes, Nnoitra-sama.” She bowed her head and climbed the stairs towards their room.

“You should change as well,” Tesra instructed his mate, though he said this more gently than Nnoitra.

“Sure thing,” she smirked, and followed Rangiku up.

While Tesra and Tatsuki didn’t live with them, the two did keep a few changes of clothing in the guest bedroom, just for this sort of circumstance. None of them knew when Nnoitra would decide that he wanted to go out for an evening and Tesra wasn’t the sort that would make his Espada wait while he went home to clean up.

Rangiku dug through the wardrobe and pulled out one of the nicer kimonos Tesra had picked out for her over the years, a dark green furisode with a pattern of pine branches. It was still winter and this one’s thicker fabric would help keep the chill away.

“Need any help?” Tatsuki asked, entering the room with a kimono of her own draped over an arm.

“Please,” Rangiku requested without hesitation.

The two women set about getting dressed. It was rare that Nnoitra dragged them out for dinner, but it did happen. Even though she suspected it was more to show off his possessions to the rest of the Seireitei, their evenings out as a foursome were usually pleasant affairs and the places he chose to take them were nice, middle-of-the-road establishments.

“So, where do you think we are going to be going out tonight?” Tatsuki asked as she helped Rangiku pin up her long hair and tie the kimono’s matching obi.

“Hopefully that place Nnoitra-sama took us to last summer. They had the best kabayaki I have ever tasted!” she prayed, then pouted. “Of course, I’ll have to limit my portion. I’m going to get as big as a house if I keep eating the way I have of late.”

“Oh, don’t remind me,” Tatsuki moaned. “The flavour was amazing, and the presentation! I could eat that every day for the rest of my life!” Then her friend glared at her, as Rangiku could almost feel the heat of the human woman’s scorn on the back of her neck. “You are _not_ getting fat. That’s the paranoia talking!”

“Well, I guess we will find out in a moment. Are you done back there?”

“Just about. There, got it!” Tatsuki declared, stepping away as she finished tying off the obi. “Let’s go see where we are going tonight.”

The two women descended the stairs to meet the men waiting for them. Both wore fresh, clean uniforms and Rangiku was secretly glad that she’d done yesterday’s laundry early.

“Perfect,” Nnoitra purred, as he looked her up and down. He had the wide, lecherous grin on his face that let her know he approved of her appearance.

Despite herself, she blushed and looked down. He didn’t compliment her often, and when he did, he actually meant it. The Fifth didn’t bother with words of false flattery. He didn’t exactly need them; unlike her past suitors, he didn’t have to put any effort attempting to lure her into his bed when he could simply order her between the sheets.

She wasn’t sure if she liked what that implied about her sense of self-worth, that a small amount of praise from someone who didn’t have to give it at all could generate that kind of reaction from her. Then she decided that she didn’t care. She was going out for the evening, a rare treat and worrying about anything more than that, or engaging in introspection, something she’d never been all that good with anyway, was a waste of time.

“Thank you, Nnoitra-sama,” Rangiku replied, and bowed low, giving her master a glimpse of the back of her neck.

“You are beautiful, as usual,” Tesra complimented his own mate, offering her both his arm and a smile.

“Hmm,” she agreed, and then turned eyes gone sultry up at him. “You’re not too shabby yourself, handsome.”

The sun hung low on the horizon, painting the world orange as Nnoitra led them down the streets of the 1st District towards the restaurant he had chosen for tonight’s meal. It turned out to be the exact restaurant she’d hoped to revisit, the one whose food she and Tatsuki had raved about. Her happiness must have leaked over into the Claim between them, because Nnoitra looked down at her a little oddly, before Tesra moved to open the door for his master and their women. Today had been an exceedingly good day, in Rangiku’s opinion.

“Tesra told me you two are going to take in that brat Barragan wants to get rid of,” Nnoitra snorted halfway through their meal, his chopsticks poised in mid-air over a bowl of grilled eel. Rangiku went still, and Tesra and Tatsuki looked at one another.

“Yes, Nnoitra-sama” Tatsuki replied hesitantly, as if she was afraid that Nnoitra was about to put the kibosh on the whole deal.

The Espada popped the bit of eel in his mouth and chewed before looking across the table at his fraccion and his mate. Then he grinned at them and the brief moment of tension evaporated as the rest of the party realized that Nnoitra seemed quite pleased about it.

“Good. It will be a fucking treat to see that old, wrinkled goat stew over the fact the brat escaped him,” he laughed, then leaned back with a satisfied smirk on his face. “Do they know what it is?”

“It’s a girl,” Rangiku answered quietly. “Orihime-chan let me know yesterday.”

“Heh. Even better. His loss…” Nnoitra crowed, and then looked squarely at Rangiku. “How is everything going at the 4th Division?”

“Busy,” Rangiku responded. “Unohana-Taichou says she’s grateful that I’m able to help with the wounded. She says doing so frees Orihime-chan and her up to care for the worst cases.”

“Good to hear,” he commented and took another bite of eel.

The subject dropped now, Rangiku could only wonder at his attitude towards the Second Espada. Barragan was an occasional visitor to their home on poker nights and Nnoitra had never denied the high-raked Arrancar a place at the card game. There was no hint of any animosity between them, other than the usual male smack-talk in between rounds, on those nights. Was there some kind of rivalry between the two she couldn’t see? She didn’t think so, as Barragan’s fraccion had had no problem approaching Tesra. Then she decided that it might be better to concentrate on the delicious barbecued eel on her plate instead. Despite her earlier assertion that she’d only eat a limited amount, her hunger was such that she was done before Nnoitra and wishing she had an extra slice or two on top of what she’d eaten.

Rangiku gave herself a silent scolding for her gluttony and lack of willpower.

_If I keep eating at this rate, none of my clothing will fit!_

The rest of dinner went smoothly and she found herself pressed against her ‘master’s’ side as they walked back to the house, Nnoitra’s arm draped around her waist. Tesra shared a similar pose with her own mate, the two of them snuggled comfortably together. They truly were a good couple and Rangiku envied them. Any outsider would be able to look at the two couples and know that, while their postures mimicked one another; obvious affection and mutual love surrounded one pair while the other appeared more like a man holding his possession close. It was downright cold out now that the sun had set, so she welcomed Nnoitra’s body heat at least, the warmth giving her a reason to want to stick close to him. There were times, however, that she felt more like something he wanted to show off; a proverbial designer handbag or a bit of expensive jewellery.

They passed the house Tesra and Tatsuki shared first. The two women wished each other good night before she and Nnoitra continued the short distance home. Walking through the entryway, she glared at the golden chain hanging on its hook by the door before taking it down and reattaching it. She really, really hated the damn thing.

She carefully walked up the stairs, lifting the heavy silk of the kimono to keep from tripping. Nnoitra followed closely behind her. Without asking, he undid the obi and let it fall to the floor to lie at her feet. His hands didn’t stop there though. They pulled the two layers of her now-open kimono aside and cupped a breast in each hand as he came up flush behind her, his arousal digging into her back. She had been expecting as much. He had taken her out and done something nice, and now he expected payment. She didn’t have the option to say no, and unlike many of her past lovers, as much as she hated him for chaining her like this, he knew how to pluck moans of pleasure from her. The things he could do with that long tongue of his alone ought to be illegal.

 _Or perhaps, it should be made into a requirement by law,_ she couldn’t help but to think as one of his hands trailed down from her breast and towards the nest of strawberry-blond curls at the juncture of her thighs.

His fingers raked gently through the small hairs that protected her nether region before starting to stroke over, and then alongside the folds of her womanhood. She let out a little moan, both because it felt good and because he expected it. Rangiku could thank Tatsuki for that bit of enlightenment regarding the fragility of the male ego.

For all of his domineering ways, Nnoitra loved to feel ‘manly’ and one of the many ‘manly’ things he prided himself on was the ability to get a woman to pant and whimper beneath him. Since there was no way out of having sex with him, she long ago decided that she would at least get something out of their encounters too. Therefore, with little moans and sighs, the ones she had once repressed in denial of what she had become, she let him know what actually felt good to her. In turn, because he got off on the idea of turning a woman, even one he had enslaved, into a writhing mess beneath him, Nnoitra would return again and again to the places she enjoyed being touched.

While he had used the Claim to force her into bed with him, especially at the beginning of their ‘relationship,’ he had never used it to force her to make false noises and exclamations of pleasure and loyalty. It was one, small thing that relieved her, that all of her moans were honestly earned.

“Does that feel good?” he breathed into her ear.

“Yea, Nnoitra-sama,” she murmured.

The hand still toying with her breast moved away from it and slid the rest of her clothing off of her shoulders to pool at their feet, leaving her completely exposed. Meanwhile, two long fingers stroked her insides while a thumb rolled the overly sensitive bundle of nerves slightly to the north of her entrance. His fingers, like his tongue, were sinfully long, calloused from decades, if not a century or more, of wielding Santa Teresa. The feel of their rough texture against her flesh sent tremors of pleasure through her as they stroked her silken, inner walls at depths no previous lover had ever been able to reach.

Sweat broke out on her skin as he worked her inner core and another low moan escaped her lips. The object probing her back was much firmer now and noticeably twitching. His mouth descended to her neck, licking softly and giving little love bites over the scar situated at the juncture of her neck and her shoulder, created from multiple Claiming sessions over the last fifteen years. Almost all of those Claimed had such a scar, save for her former Taichou, and any other slave with a female master now that she thought about it.

Knowing how much it stroked his ego, and how much more lenient he was with the restrictions he laid on her when he was happy, she started to rub her bottom against him, stimulating the hardened flesh trapped between their bodies and his remaining clothing. Now Nnoitra let out a low moan of his own and his grip on her loosened just a bit. There was something she had been working up to ask him to do, and he was always far more willing to consider her requests when he was in the middle of post-coital bliss, especially if she had willingly brought him to that point without his having to use the Claim. With that in mind, she let one of her hands snake around behind her and work its way into his hakama, grasping him and giving him a light squeeze. His nipping kisses paused as she did so. Then his body pressed more insistently against hers. All the while, those two fingers and thumb kept moving and stroking her.

“Nnoitra-sama,” she pause to let out a little gasp as that particular rotation of his thumb made her legs tremble enough for her to worry about remaining upright, “I would like to please you.”

She could feel the leer that crossed his lips where they touched her skin. He knew exactly what she was offering to do, and with one more pass over her nub with his thumb, he removed his fingers from her core and took a small step back.

“Far be it from me to deny my woman the right to do her duty.”

She wanted to bristle at that, and Haineko had a few, very scathing things to say in the privacy of her head, which Rangiku silently agreed with, but sometimes one had to force oneself to get along with the dogs if one wanted to get to the field of catnip on the other side of the kennel. Haineko huffed in annoyance, but conceded there was wisdom in the metaphor. Both of them were ready to get out of the bloody kennel and into the catnip, even if it was only for a day. Today’s excursions had whetted her appetite for more freedom and if this was the price she had to pay to get it, then so be it.

With a bit of space between them, Rangiku turned around in his grasp and released the hold she had on him so she could set about removing what was left of his uniform. He just stood there and smiled a little triumphantly as she undressed him until he was as naked as she was, his clothes joining hers in a jumble on the floor. Only then did she return her attention to the large and twitching rod of flesh that erupted from the black curls between his legs.

While not as thick as some of her previous lovers, he was definitely very long, and his sheer length made sure that, when he seated himself in her, he touched parts of her she hadn’t even known she had. She doubted even the most well trained Rukongai courtesan could deep throat him, and he had never expected her to even try.

Rangiku carefully kneeled before him and took the object of her attention in hand, stroking him for almost a full minute before bringing her lips forward to take the head into her mouth, assaulting it with her tongue as she did so. Nnoitra, oddly enough, was very fastidious about his grooming so he never smelled or tasted bad unless he had just come from a battle or training and hadn’t had the time to clean up first. On those occasions, however, he was more likely to take her in the shower, resolving the issue of cleanliness and scent. Other than a brief bit of salty tang from his precum, he tasted like normal flesh, which made doing this so much easier.

Oral sex was something she had never offered any of her previous partners, and oddly enough, Nnoitra did not really demand it of her. For several minutes, the only sound in the room was that of his soft panting and the sucking noises she made as she worked him with her mouth and fingers. She could feel his legs twitch against her when a particular tongue stroke or a bit of suction on her part sent him a wave of pleasure.

“Bed,” he gasped out.

He took slow steps back until he reached the edge of the bed and laid back, his legs still dangling over the edge. She had followed him on her knees, mouth and fingers never leaving him.

“Get up here and turn around,” he ordered, his voice low and full of pent up lust and testosterone-fuelled excitement.

It didn’t take her long to figure out what he wanted, and without releasing the flesh buried in her mouth, she moved up onto the bed and spun her body about, straddling his body with her own. His hand grasped and groped her rear shortly before she felt that overly long, tattooed, sinful tongue of his delve into her folds. It suddenly became much harder to think about what was going on with her mouth and hands.

She had often wondered why he would lower himself to give her oral, and he did so almost every time they had sex. Shinigami men would often remark that such an act was beneath them. Tatsuki had explained it was a Hollow thing, done to prepare their partners for penetration, something left over from their Adjuchas days, or so she said Tesra had explained to her. Apparently, Adjuchas genitalia, male and female, were much different that the more human-looking Arrancar, and varied from sub-species to sub-species. She didn’t care about Hollow mating rituals, not truly, but Rangiku could appreciate this particular tradition. She didn’t even want to think about what it would be like for an Adjuchas to take her so frequently without preparation. The few times he had done so, usually in a fit of rage that had nothing to do with her, had been bad enough.

It was getting harder to keep up with sucking him off as that devilish tongue continued to torment her, slipping between her folds and burrowing its way inside of her in a way no other man had ever been able to do. Oh, did it feel good! She moaned around the cock in her mouth as that hot, wet, strong muscle stroked her insides. He managed to wring a gasp out of her as he curled to tip of his tongue inside of her and used it to stroke her inner walls like some sort of boneless finger.

“Nnoitra-sama,” she whimpered, barely remembering to add the honorific. Her hips seemed to have a mind of their own, thrusting back to get as much of his mouth on her, in her, as possible.

His tongue temporarily retreated from her core so he could speak. “You like that, don’t you, pet?” he asked, giving her nether lips and her clitoris a few lazy strokes before delving into her once more.

“Yes, ooohhh…!” she moaned as he set back to work on her.

Since she was unable to continue working him with her mouth, because of the sheer amount of sobs and gasps on her part, she elected to wrap her breasts around him instead while he bucked his hips up in a loose rhythm to get the friction he desired. She let her tongue dip to the head of his cock and she lavished the head and slit with the tip. She had no idea how long he ate her out, how long they remained in that position. This time when his tongue retreated from ever-so-pleasantly tormenting her, he manoeuvred them so he was leaning against the wall with her in his lap, his muscular chest rubbing against her back. One hand toyed with a nipple while the other spread her nether lips and inserted two fingers into her. He moved them back and forth, as if testing her.

“Good and wet, perfect…” he said in a low voice, the words thick with want. “Shall we get to the best part?”

“Yes, Nnoitra-sama,” she responded, not wanting to delay anything either.

Rangiku grasped his shaft with her hands and guided it to her entrance. She leaned away from his chest for a minute and lifted her body up before sinking down, slowly taking that long length into her until she was fully-seated in his lap, her butt flush against his thighs.

“Such a good pet,” he purred, reaching up and running his fingers through her long, dishevelled hair.

She blushed with more anger at the endearment than pleasure, but she doubted he cared either way what caused her cheeks to go rosy. It was hard to stay pissed when she had something buried so deep inside of her that she couldn’t help but to wonder if it was pushing against the cervix.

Both hands groped her breasts now and he gave his hips a jerk, clearly indicating he wanted her to start moving. It was an odd angle, and yet she couldn’t help but to enjoy it as she moved in his lap, bringing her body up and then down with a flex of her thigh muscles. His mouth latched onto her neck and suckled, his hands continued to molest her bosom, squeezing, rubbing and occasionally rolling the nipples between his fingers. They continued this way until her legs started to get sore as she moved her body against his. He must have anticipated her exhaustion, because he suddenly grabbed her hips and flipped her forward, forcing her to catch herself with her hands before she went face-first into the blanket. He was out from under her in a flash and the next think she knew he was behind her. The new position left her on her hands and knees, and he took over the work, thrusting deeply into her body and pulling a startled scream out of her mouth as his reiatsu invaded her. She hadn’t expected him to reinforce their Claim, but she could never deny the sheer amount of bone-deep pleasure the act gave her, even if she found the resulting chains of enslavement repulsive.

She knew he was close because he suddenly paused, before thrusting into her at a new and erratic pace. In the intense pleasure of the Claim rolling over her, she never felt the pain as his teeth tore into her neck, drinking her blood and their mixed reiatsu into his own body and binding her more firmly to him once more. His shaft violently pulsed inside of her as white fluid gushed from his body into hers, some of it escaping to dribble down her legs but in the midst of her own toe-curling orgasm, she hardly noticed.

They remained frozen like that for almost a minute, him still buried in her with his teeth still latched sharply onto her neck. She panted desperately for breath beneath him even as his body gave off a few more involuntary shivers. Her arms barely managed to hold her up and after another moment she let them give way, bring her to rest on the bed while he remained hovering over her, licking a few stray drops of her blood from his lips before spooning up against her.

“So beautiful,” he muttered, running his hands over her back, exhaustion lacing his voice.

Rangiku was ready to sleep for a week, her body feeling a mixture of orgasmic bliss combined by the feeling of uncomfortable entrapment as his reiatsu wrapped around hers. She felt tears threaten her eyes and furiously blinked them away. Every other female in her group loved the feeling of their mate’s reiatsu playing alongside theirs, but Nnoitra was not her mate, he was her Master. Unlike the others, who found the reiatsu surrounding their own similar to that of a safety blanket, all she felt were chains trapping her to his whim, locking her up like a cat in a too-small cage.

 _‘_ _Your request,_ _’_ Haineko reminded her before she could slip into post-Claim-induced slumber.

 _‘_ _Shit, thanks,_ _’_ she thought groggily. Claiming always left both of them completely exhausted. “Nnoitra-sama,” she spoke up hesitantly.

“Hmm?” he responded, and she knew he was almost out as well.

“I would like permission to go to the market for a few hours tomorrow, if it’s alright with you.”

“Sure, whatever,” he murmured, half-asleep.

Elation filled her. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had permission to go to the market, let alone for a few hours. She would have to take Tatsuki with her and the two of them could really get down and girly.

“Take Tesra,” he added, before letting out a long breath and surprisingly, pulling her close to him as he settled into the bedding.

“I will,” she assured him, having already expected the condition. “Thank you,” she whispered and meant it.

He gave one last grunt and pulled the blankets over them before drifting off. Rangiku couldn’t recall the last time she’d set foot in the Seireitei’s garment district, to shop for pleasure. The last time she’d been allowed out to the markets, she had been with Tesra, to pick up household necessities. She followed quickly after, a small smile on her face as she dreamed about clothing and all the accessories that might go with them.


	25. Shopping Spree

The next morning dawned bright, clear and beautiful as the birds outside twittered happily in the tree branches.

Rangiku wished her stomach felt as good.

She had woken up before Nnoitra and had taken a quick shower before hurrying downstairs to cook a large breakfast. She wanted to start this day out right, for it wouldn’t be the first time that he had forgotten a promise he had made before going to sleep the night before. Since it was impossible for her to lie to him, she usually managed to get her way but sometimes he had a change of heart. She did not want any changes of heart.

What she wanted was a new stomach. For some reason, the smell of cooking food seemed to twist her gut and it wasn’t until she’d helped herself to some of the morning’s miso that her tummy finally settled down. Some tea helped as well. She chalked it up to excitement, nerves and the potential for two days of relative freedom in a row.

By the time she finished loading up a large plate of food and brought it upstairs for him, he was just starting to stir himself.

“Good morning Nnoitra-sama,” she greeted him, setting the plate of food down on the small table beside him and rejoining him in bed.

Thankfully, all signs of that strange wave of nausea were gone. Maybe the eel at the restaurant last night hadn’t agreed with her as much as she’d agreed with its taste. She’d check with Tatsuki to see if the other woman had experienced anything similar. She’d hate to think she’d picked up anything nasty from the restaurant meal, since they’d raved about both it and the place between them.

“You sure seem perky today,” he noted as he sat up, pulled the tray over his lap and tucked into breakfast like a starved animal.

She knew he would be hungry, since casting Claims was hard work and he was always ravenous afterwards. Often, he hungered for more than just food and if he kept his promise from last night to her, she would happily give him that as well.

“You promised last night I could go to the market today,” she hesitantly reminded him.

“I did?” he asked suspiciously, chopsticks frozen above his rice bowl.

“Yes, so long as I brought Tesra-san with me,” she added. _Please don_ _’_ _t let him change his mind,_ she silently begged, looking at him hopefully.

It wouldn’t be the first time and she felt both herself, and Haineko, staring at the slightly opened door of that proverbial kennel with apprehension, wondering if it would stay open or if it would slam shut in her face when she got close.

Nnoitra frowned, and then shrugged and resumed attacking the food on the tray with renewed gusto.

“Fine, Make sure you get some more of that sake I like,” he grunted, reaching over the side of the bed to drag a card out of his hakama pocket. “Just don’t spend more than 50,000 yen.”

Her eyes lit up in shock as she took the card from him with trembling fingers. She hadn’t expected that he would actually _give_ her his card, let alone allow her such a high spending limit.

“Of course, Nnoitra-sama,” she stammered.

He finished eating while she put the card someplace safe before returning to bed and pressing her body against his. He was still tired from the night before, but that didn’t stop him from getting it up and in. They did pause long enough to get into the shower and he finished taking her in there with Rangiku pressed face-first against the shower wall while he pounded into her from behind.

She practically skipped about the house and spent a decent amount of time picking out something to wear after he’d left her to her own ablutions in the bathroom. She was just coming down to the main level, and paused to give an amused Nnoitra a kiss on his way out the door to do his assigned patrols, when Tesra and Tatsuki arrived to check in for any orders.

“You seem happy this morning,” Tatsuki commented as Nnoitra filled Tesra in on his duties for the day. If Rangiku had anything to say about it, Tesra would be holding a lot of shopping bags for the two of them.

“I have permission to go to the market, with a 50,000 yen limit!” she squealed in delight, pulling Tatsuki into the kitchen to share an enthusiastic hug.

“Hmm, your face does feel flushed.”

Tatsuki placed the back of her hand on Rangiku’s forehead.

“That’s because I just got out of the shower,” she said dryly, pulling her human friend’s fingers away and clasping them with both of her hands. “I am just going to double check for anything we might need, clean up the dishes and then we can leave.”

She quickly scoured the few dishes from breakfast and set them to dry on the counter, while Tatsuki put away the leftovers. The dark-haired woman made a face as she placed a small bowl of steamed rice and the leftover soup into the refrigerator and looked around for the teakettle. Wordlessly, she shut the door, found the cupboard with the tea tins, and made herself a quick cup with the still-hot water.

“That was odd. I just had miso this morning and for a second…”

The taller woman paused to drain the sink and frowned. Looking at Tatsuki she saw a similar, ‘green around the gills’ look to what she’d experienced this morning while cooking.

“You too? Maybe it was the eel last night. I didn’t feel all that great when I got up until I’d drunk some miso soup and had some tea.”

Tatsuki made a face and sipped on the hot tea, staring at a point on the wall as if she were pondering something.

“I hope it wasn’t the eel. Really, it tasted just fine when I wolfed it down. I really like that place too. This helps though.”

Rangiku made an ‘hmmph’ sound and crossed her arms.

“Well, I refuse to let something like a touchy gut or some dubious eel ruin a perfectly wonderful day at the market! I feel fine now.”

“Maybe your brain just likes the idea of all of those pretty kimonos and jewellery better than it likes dwelling on an upset stomach.”

She laughed at Tatsuki’s observation, giggling a little as she pulled a package of pork from the freezer and set it in the refrigerator to thaw for their evening meal.

“Perhaps you’re right,’ she replied, taking the teacup from Tatsuki when she’d finished and placing it near the sink.

Tesra joined them a moment later.

“How much time do I get?” Rangiku asked him immediately.

“Nnoitra-sama didn’t say. He just informed me of the limit and that any necessary supplies, such as food, don’t count towards that limit” he answered dutifully.

“Excellent!” she exclaimed, finishing off the list of things they needed. “Well, what are we waiting for? There are hordes of vendors, deprived of my company for ages now, just waiting to show me their newest wares! We simply can’t keep them waiting!”

Rangiku plucked Haineko from the stand by the door (one never knew when a battle might occur) as she marched out, pausing only to unhook herself from the thrice-cursed chain and hanging the clip on the end on its hook by the door. Then she let her excitement and anticipation take control of both her feet and her heart and let them propel her to the market.

Most of the morning proved to be an excellent time, sublime even. The sun warmed up the streets quickly, a sign that winter was slowly losing its grip on the Soul Society and Rangiku planned on enjoying every second of her freedom lest some unwelcome development, such as a Swarm incursion, interrupt it. She lost track of how many kimono and silk shops she dragged Tatsuki into and revelled in the chance to try on some lovely things. She’d put all that effort into earning this time and she vowed to make the most of it, even if Tatsuki was ready for a break a little before noon and Tesra had to resort to consolidating bags to free up more space in his arms for their purchases. His mate had finally given into Rangiku’s demands that she purchase a new spring kimono, though she chose a much more conservative cut, color and pattern than the taller woman thought she should wear.

“You can’t dress like an old granny, Tatsuki!”

“This is perfectly acceptable, for my age and marital status,” the younger woman replied archly as Rangiku tied the garment’s matching obi. “And the peony pattern is _fine_ for spring!”

“But… dark gray, Tatsuki?”

“The butterflies make up for it.”

“You’re utterly hopeless!”

“No, I’m just not sixteen anymore.”

Unfortunately, things turned unpleasant after lunch and Rangiku’s hoped-for day of marathon clothes shopping came to a sudden, screeching stop.

“Ugh,” Tatsuki complained, pausing in the middle of the street. “I feel terrible. Lunch is just not sitting right.”

The human woman, to Rangiku’s consternation, looked sweaty and greener than she had in the kitchen this morning. For that matter, she wasn’t feeling particularly stellar either. A much stronger version of the nausea that had plagued her while cooking breakfast was doing its best to put a damper on her spirits.

“Maybe it was the food,” Rangiku agreed, a hand on her own belly, feeling a little clammy. “Did that vendor seem suspicious to you?”

“Not at first, but I am starting to wonder if maybe that fish wasn’t a little off,” Tatsuki returned, truly not looking well now.

Tesra, for the most part, seemed perfectly fine, but that didn’t mean anything, as Rangiku assumed that his Arrancar stomach could handle anything he chose to throw into it. Presently, he trailed behind the two women, loaded down with four baskets full of their morning purchases and to a lesser extent, the household necessities.

“Are you feeling alright?” he asked hesitantly, looking from Tatsuki to Rangiku and back again with growing alarm.

“I think I’ll be…”

Tatsuki never finished what she was going to say. Instead, she choked, gagged and then rushed off into the space between two stalls. Seeing that seemed to trigger some involuntary reaction deep within the blond’s gut, as if Tatsuki’s actions gave Rangiku’s innards permission to rebel.

“Ugh, me too!”

Rangiku, rapidly losing control of her upper digestive system, followed closely behind her friend. One alley and one startled, screeching tomcat later saw both women purging the grilled fish they had eaten for lunch from their bodies in a most undignified way, leaving a sour taste in their mouths and distress on their faces.

“I am going to go back and kill him for trying to poison us!” Tatsuki hissed, before doubling over and adding the noodles she’d eaten before the fish to the pool of vomit on the ground.

“Not if I…”

Rangiku’s gut decided to turn itself upside down without asking so much as a ‘by your leave’ before she too emptied the remainder of her last meal onto the paving stones.

“…kill him first,” she finished blearily.

“I think I should bring you two to the 4th Division,” Tesra spoke up hesitantly. “Nnoitra-sama would be displeased if he found out I let you contract something from a vendor of questionable foodstuffs.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. Some forms of food poisoning can be dangerous…” Tatsuki reluctantly mentioned with a very non-dainty ‘urp!’ Fortunately, Tesra was the sort of mate that kept handkerchiefs on his person, and more than one at that. It wasn’t the first time Rangiku thought Tatsuki had won some sort of lottery when it came to men as she took the thing from him and wiped her mouth. “I hope we didn’t pick up some awful parasite!”

“…and I would do anything to get rid of this nausea,” Rangiku agreed, belly still roiling.

The walk to the 4th Division was slow and uncomfortable, and both women stopped six times along the way, puking a little less at each stop they made. Tatsuki insisted that they force down some water after each retching session, as they were out of food to hurl and purging water was much better than undiluted stomach acid.

Rangiku was the veteran of more than her share of hangovers and some less-than-intelligent dietary habits, prior to the War. To the best of her knowledge, she’d never, ever felt this bad after she rid her system of whatever excessive toxin she’d taken in, intended or not. By the time they reached the 4th Division’s doors, both she and Tatsuki began to worry that whatever might be wrong with them was due to more than just bad fish or food poisoning. She wanted to cry at the spoiling of her afternoon plans and her composure.

The nurse at the front desk admitted them almost at once and, since Rangiku belonged to one of Aizen’s precious Espada, Unohana herself saw to them. Both women curled up in misery on their cots in their shared room so Tesra could keep an eye on them. Rangiku was grateful to her for that; it meant he’d be spared the torment of deciding whether to stand guard over his mate, or over his master’s pet as Nnoitra ordered.

Unohana checked them both, asked a dozen questions, including what they had eaten, where and when and if they’d experienced any other episodes of being unwell in the last week or so. A staff member carefully pulled a small sample of blood from each of them, requested urine samples too, pointing towards a nearby, one-person lavatory and handing them a plastic jar each, as well as a thick black pen. With that task completed, Unohana called for a pitcher of water and two cups. Both women groaned unhappily, but took the sips of water Tesra poured for them. Unohana seemed pleased that Tatsuki had enough knowledge, thanks to her years in marital arts and the basic first aid training that went with it, to keep the two of them at least hydrated. When she’d collected what she thought were enough answers from the two women, she told them she was going to go see what the blood panels and the urine samples revealed, if anything, and said she’d return shortly. While Rangiku’s nausea hadn’t exactly abated, she didn’t think she’d need to dash like a madwoman for the closest toilet either. Tatsuki’s queasiness had wrung her out, but at least she wasn’t holding the room’s small trash bin beneath her chin.

Rangiku had no idea how long it took to determine if there was anything wrong with them, other than the obvious, but when Unohana returned, roughly fifteen minutes later, she looked at them both and let out a long sigh that contained equal amounts of depression and happiness. Her expression remained a bit guarded, however.

“Well, the good news is there is no sign of food poisoning in either of you,” she announced, drumming both sets of fingers on the back of the clipboard she held.

“I swear I haven’t had anything to drink in ages!”

Rangiku’s attempt at self-defence earned her a wan smile from Unohana-Taichou.

“I believe you, Matsumoto-san. Alcohol is certainly not the issue here, I’m afraid.”

“So… what’s wrong with us?” Tatsuki asked.

Unohana put on what Rangiku could only describe as a ‘brave’ sort of smile, just as she felt a tiny amount of dread kindle in her heart at its appearance.

“I need the two of you to visit Szayel once we address your nausea, so he can take a set of preliminary images with that ultrasound machine he is so proud of. I also want to run some more blood work to make sure all your blood sugar and vitamin levels are within the proper ranges.”

None of this made any sense to the blond Shinigami, as Unohana’s assistant pressed a cup of something lukewarm that smelled like mint into her hands and then brought a similar cup to Tatsuki to drink. It helped settle her innards, whatever it was. Why send them to the Science and Research Division of all places? Did that mean that whatever was wrong with her was more serious than the 4th Division members could handle?

“If we aren’t poisoned, what is wrong with us?” Rangiku demanded as she handed back the cup after drinking the whole thing down.

Then she heard Tatsuki, on her side of the room, start to snicker as Tesra took his mate’s empty cup.

“Oh for the love of…”

Then, to her confusion, her human friend began to laugh in earnest.

“One month, I told you ‘don’t think it will happen in the first month’ and you just had to prove me wrong,” she said, wiping at the corners of her eyes as she turned to Tesra.

Tesra looked at Rangiku for clarification, and then to Unohana. Rangiku was perplexed. The only one who seemed to know what Unohana was talking about was Tatsuki and she was laughing too hard to fill the other two in on the secret.

“I see that at least you seem to understand,” Unohana noted with a faint smile.

“There is only one reason you would send us to Szayel for _anything_ , and that would be if we were pregnant. So, are we?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

Rangiku felt her body suddenly go cold with shock and her hand raced towards her chest, clutching at the front of her yukata. She barely heard Unohana’s confirmation, failed to notice Tesra’s cry of surprised delight as the mated couple hugged each other joyfully. Instead, her mind raced in panicked circles.

_Nnoitra said he didn_ _’_ _t want children. Oh Kami, what happens if he doesn_ _’_ _t want this child? What will I do if he blames me for getting pregnant? What will happen if he wants to get rid of it, like Barragan? Will he start treating me the way that rat bastard treats Soi Fon? Would he try to force a miscarriage?_

Rangiku was unaware that she had started to hyperventilate until she grew dizzy and Unohana clamped a hand over her mouth to force her to breathe through her nose.

“Rangiku!” Unohana called urgently.

She hardly heard her name spoken, even though Unohana was inches away. All she could hear was her blood rushing in her ears, her heart pounding and her rapid breaths. Terror and disbelief flooded her as a thousand awful thoughts descended on her. They included everything from Nnoitra wanting to kill her or the child or both, to the fear of bringing a baby that the father detested into the world. Her panic was such that she could hardly focus on the woman in front of her. Off to the side Tesra and Tatsuki didn’t even seem to notice her distress, caught up in their own excitement. Unohana stepped to the door, called out something to someone Rangiku couldn’t see and returned with her hands full of healing Kido.

“Matsumoto-san, please calm down,” Unohana softly insisted, her hands glowing as she placed her hands gently on the blonde-haired woman’s shoulders, with the intent to calm her down. A few moments later, one of the healer’s subordinates came into the room armed with a syringe and a determined look.

Unfortunately, at least for the subordinate, the needle never made it near Rangiku. The woman carrying it abruptly screamed in pain as a long-fingered hand grasped her wrist and shattered it. Unohana turned around to see her assistant on the floor, arm in the grip of a very pissed-off Espada. Nnoitra kicked the syringe out of his way, teeth bared and looking for some sort of fight.

“What the fuck is going on in here?” he roared, eyes fixed on Unohana.

Tesra leaped up in shock at seeing his master here, and almost had his head taken off as Santa Teresa whipped around his way, stopping with the blade cutting just deep enough into his neck to draw blood. Nnoitra didn’t release his grip on the poor assistant’s hand either and the woman cried out in agony, tears of pain streaming down her face.

“I thought I told you to watch her,” Nnoitra snarled at Tesra, glaring at his fraccion.

“Nnoitra-sama, please put your weapon down and please release my subordinate.”

Unohana stated the order calmly, seemingly unperturbed by the Fifth’s enraged appearance.

Rangiku looked up at his furious face and felt her fear intensify a hundred times over. He was angry. He was upset. She just knew he would force the child from her. He’d never wanted children, had told her as much to her face and now, here she was, pregnant with the very thing he had declared he didn’t want. Unohana had removed her hand from Rangiku’s mouth to stand up to stare down Nnoitra, letting Rangiku resume her hyperventilating, although at a lower rate thanks to whatever Kido Unohana used to regulate her breathing.

Nnoitra tossed a deadly glare at the short, dark-haired woman, but Unohana stood her ground, undaunted by the fact she had an armed, angry Arrancar only a few feet away.

“Maybe I didn’t make myself clear the first damn time! What the fuck is going on here?!”

“She’s experiencing an unfortunate amount of shock. We intended no harm. The needle contained a sedative to help calm Matsumoto-san. She took the news much harder than I thought she would.”

Unohana gave the woman on the bed below her a worried frown, while Nnoitra continued to hold Tesra in place with the business edge of Santa Theresa. Tatsuki sat frozen, eyes huge, gripping the sides of the bed with white-knuckled hands.

Rangiku could feel nothing but fear. She literally shook with it, body trembling and her eyes firmly planted on the wall next to her. She didn’t dare look at him. Any minute now, he would start screaming and yelling at her for this catastrophe. Worse, poor Tesra had ended up caught between them. Clearly, the news of Tatsuki’s pregnancy had excited the fraccion and his mate so much that he hadn’t had a chance to notice Rangiku’s distress.

“I will inform you of the details regarding Matsumoto-san’s condition when you put away your weapon and release my 7th Seat.”

For a long minute, Nnoitra and Unohana regarded one another, he seething and she waiting for him to obey her command. Unohana’s tone had gone frosty now and Rangiku prayed to whatever god would listen that Nnoitra wouldn’t do anything rash around Aizen’s ‘wife,’ especially when he found out.

A rush of jealousy unexpectedly hit her. She was jealous of Tatsuki for having an Arrancar master that actually cared for her and loved her. She almost, almost, hated the two of them for being so happy about the situation while her entire world was about to go to hell in short order.

Nnoitra finally released the poor attendant and the woman was quick to make a getaway, clutching her injured wrist to her chest. Unohana remained a pool of serenity, even though Santa Teresa was still pressed against Tesra’s jugular vein. The fraccion hadn’t so much as twitched from his spot. Once the 4th Division healer had scrambled to safety, Unohana gave Nnoitra a slight bow, a reward for rational behaviour.

“Thank you.”

She then smiled at the Espada, and turned to look at the other couple in the room. “Lindocruz-san, would you be kind enough to take Tatsuki-chan to Szayel-san? He will know what to do from here. Don’t worry, you’ll be treated quite well once he finds out why you’re there. Please see the front desk for a kit. They’ll know which one I mean when you tell them your next stop is at the Science and Research Division.”

No one in the room, certainly not Tesra, considered her words a request. He didn’t move a muscle though, at least not until Nnoitra grudgingly removed the blade from his throat and grunted at him to do as the accursed woman ordered. Tesra and Tatsuki sent Rangiku worried looks, but obediently and quickly left.

Once she was alone with Unohana and Nnoitra, her terror and violent shaking began anew.

“Please, sit down Nnoitra,” Unohana indicated the chair beside Rangiku’s bed, taking a few steps back to allow him room to get past her. “As you’ve stated, I am not in the habit of repeating myself either.”

Now that it was just the three of them, Rangiku saw Unohana pull a look from the metaphorical bag in which she kept her bedside manner, one that actually made Nnoitra’s livid expression falter. The Espada took a step back from the dark-haired woman as well and he eyed the chair next to the bed.

With no small amount of irritation, he impaled his overly large and odd-shaped Zanpakuto through the floor into the ground and rushed over to Rangiku, climbing onto the bed and pulling her against him, instantly checking her body over with his eyes and hands. She quivered at his touch and felt a new round of fright fill her as his hands roved over her stomach. She tried to force them away and he frowned down at her, catching her wrist with his fingers, though not hurting her the way he’d hurt the nurse.

“I am sorry she received the diagnosis this poorly. As I stated, I did not expect her to react thusly,” Unohana explained. “The sedative was a mild one, to calm her, given the degree of her panic.”

“What news are you talking about? What was so fucking bad that she’s like this?” Nnoitra snapped. His eyes never left Rangiku and she tried in vain to draw away from him, only for the Arrancar to hold her steady.

“Quite simply, you are going to be a father.”

Nnoitra’s body froze against hers and his own breathing stilled.

 _Here it comes,_ Rangiku mentally whimpered, bracing for a blow, a smack to her face, some kind of violence that told her he was unhappy with her.

“W...what?”

“Matsumoto-san and Tatsuki-chan are both pregnant. They spend a great deal of time together and it’s possible that their cycles and thus their fertility were synched as a result. It’s likely that they conceived around the same time.”

Nnoitra gaped at Unohana for a full minute, silent in his astonishment, before he reached down and turned Rangiku’s tear-stained face up to look at him. A slight tug on the Claim made her open her eyes, heedless of how much she wanted to hide from him.

“I didn’t mean to,” she whispered softly. “Are you going to try and get rid of it?” she asked brokenly, bracing herself for the screaming and possible beating she was certain would follow.

“What the fuck gave you that idea?” he demanded, though his voice wasn’t loud. In fact, he looked and sounded as if someone Yammy’s size had just punched him in the gut, knocked all of the air from his lungs and he was having some trouble replacing it with fresh oxygen.

Now it was her turn to freeze, more so at how shaken he sounded than his question.

“You said you didn’t want children…” Rangiku pointed out “…and Barragan…”

She never got to finish.

“Don’t compare me to that walking corpse!” he growled before she saw understanding dawn, seeping into the almost pained look he gave her. “Is that why you are freaking out, because you think I am going treat you the way he treats his fraccion’s fuck toy?”

He asked this a little more quietly than before.

Slowly, she nodded her head, saltwater spilling from the corners of her red-rimmed eyes. The look of disgust on his face intensified and she flinched away, until he made her look at him again.

“Just because I ain’t interested in any brats doesn’t mean I am going to force you to get rid of this one, unless you don’t want it, and even then, Aizen will order that you carry the kid anyway. Tesra can raise the brat if need be,” he snorted.

“I… you mean it’s my choice? I can keep the child if I want?” she asked him hesitantly.

“If you want it, keep it. If not, Tesra can take it. But I ain’t going to kill it or force you to kill it.”

Now that she was slowly calming down a bit, she realized just how stupid she was being. This was the same man who had adopted a cub that wasn’t even his own, who let Tesra follow him around and, despite his bluster, had never really actually intentionally harmed his fraccion until now. What he’d just given Tesra, in Arrancar terms, barely qualified as a scratch. In fact, if not for Nnoitra, Tesra would be dead, killed by Zaraki Kenpachi during the Winter War. Tatsuki had told her the tale during an afternoon when it had been just the two of them in the empty house, playing cards and having ‘girl time’.

“So, I can really keep the baby?”

“If you want it,” he grunted, sounding non-committal, though it seemed as if he was the one having a hard time meeting her gaze now.

The original crisis over, and no longer fearing for her life or for the child, she let herself think about her second greatest fear. Did she really want a child? Could she take care of one all by herself? When she’d first asked him about the subject, the night she’d found out that Nemu was pregnant with Szayel’s twins, Rangiku was certain that she hadn’t wanted children. However, now she was actually pregnant, and Tatsuki was as well. They were pregnant together, and they would be having children together.

Her mind conjured up various images of herself and Tatsuki going through everything together… shopping for baby clothes, both of them with round bellies, both of them sitting on the grass in one of the many 1st District parks with their respective children sitting in their laps.

Haineko, still tucked into her belt, was the one to whisper to her.

_‘_ _Silly girl_ _…_ _it isn_ _’_ _t as if you_ _’_ _ll have to do this all alone, now will you? He may be useless, but the others around you aren_ _’_ _t. It_ _’_ _s just as much yours as it is his._ _’_

“Yes, I want to keep it,” she said quickly, the words out of her mouth a second later.

A thought suddenly occurred to her and she looked up at him, meeting his eyes. He had come charging into the room and instantly attacked the poor nurse he had perceived as a threat. The young woman was lucky he hadn’t killed her.

“You came because you knew I was upset, and thought I was in danger,” she stated softly.

He grunted and untangled himself from her, taking greater care as he did so than he first had when he’d initially pulled her against him. Then he brushed off his uniform.

“No one fucks with my property is all,” he grunted, looked away with a nearly unreadable expression, and then resumed his gruff and aloof manner.

It was… heart-warming in a sense, she thought, even though she knew he didn’t exactly have one to warm.

Unohana chose that moment to clear her throat and pick up the clipboard from where she’d dropped it on the bed.

“Are you still feeling nauseous after all of this, Matsumoto-san? I recommend that you drink a cup of strong mint tea when you arrive home and one every two hours until you regain your appetite. Please let me know if you have any further purging episodes, or any nausea upon waking that prevents you from eating breakfast. For now, I suggest you try taking one cup of weak green tea and dry, unflavoured crackers to settle your stomach in the morning if necessary. I’ll need you both to come in tomorrow morning for the blood work we discussed. If you could inform Tatsuki-chan, I would like to schedule your appointments together. I believe that would make things much easier on Tesra-san,” Unohana ordered, a note of amusement in her tone.

Rangiku nodded as she listened. Her stomach had stopped doing anything other than clenching once she’d begun to panic and for now, her nausea was much less, thanks to the tea she’d already had. She hoped it would stay that way. Of course, that explained this morning’s ‘under the weather’ dyspepsia too. She hoped that the rest of her pregnancy, however long it lasted, didn’t include any more non-stop vomiting bouts like what happened after lunch.

“Well, now that everything is resolved, I will still require you to report in to Szayel-san this afternoon for an ultrasound. It will help us determine a due date and any anomalies that might exist, considering the child’s mixed heritage. In addition, I must inform my husband about your case. On your way out, please ask the desk staff for a pregnancy kit. Regardless of what Szayel-san may discover, some things never change.”

Unohana offered them both a friendly smile and Rangiku returned it.

“C’mon. We can catch up to Tesra and I can get back on patrol,” Nnoitra told her in a strangely subdued voice, helping her get to her feet.

“Alright,” Rangiku agreed.

Wiping her eyes with the back of her hand and not daring to look at any mirrors or any other reflective surfaces, she followed Unohana’s instructions. They caught up to Tatsuki and Tesra quickly. The two Arrancar males said nothing to one another after meeting one another’s eyes, but then, they seemed to have some sort of silent, ‘males-only’ communication thing going that let each other know what was on their respective minds without a need to open their mouths. Despite all attempts by the long-gone Shinigami Woman’s Association, that eerie, wordless language between men had yet to be decoded.

Whatever the method, Nnoitra clearly delivered an unspoken command to his follower, because Tesra suddenly stood up a bit straighter as Nnoitra took off, presumably to return to his patrol.

“You know, for once, I am actually excited to be going to see Szayel,” Tatsuki chuckled, tucking her arm into his.

“It’s a weird feeling,” Rangiku agreed, wrapping her arms around her torso. Tatsuki stopped abruptly, turned to the taller woman and took her elbow, concern written all over her face. Now that Nnoitra was gone, the human probably felt free to express some of the worry she’d been unable to voice in the small examination room.

“Rangiku, are you really alright?” Tatsuki asked, and stepped away to look her friend up and down. “He didn’t…”

“Yes, sorry, I went to pieces, more than I probably should have. I just remembered Nnoitra telling me he didn’t want kids at one point, and then I started thinking about what’s happening to poor Soi Fon…” she freely admitted to the two closest people in her life. “He was surprised, but he said I can keep the baby if I want.”

Looks of understanding crossed both of her companions’ faces. Tatsuki pulled her into a quick hug and Rangiku felt the last of the tension within her drain away.

_No, that_ _’_ _s right. I_ _’_ _m not going to have to do this alone._

“Nnoitra-sama might deny it but,” Tesra hesitated and looked all around to be sure no one was eavesdropping before continuing. “He was a good father,” he finished quietly, so quietly both women almost didn’t hear him. “I believe he’ll be such this time too.”

“Well, you turned out to be a complete gentleman, so he can’t be all that bad with children,” Tatsuki pointed out to her mate, and took the small kit Rangiku carried from her, adding it to the one in her arms. “He’ll have a small pack running around here soon if Szayel has anything to say about it, so it’s not as if he’s got much of a choice.”

Rangiku felt much better about things now. Her stomach still felt a little ill and she was a little tired from the adrenaline rush caused by her panic attack, but she no longer wanted to toss anything up either. Now if she really wanted something sickening, all she had to do was watch her two companions as Tatsuki sidled up to Tesra and kissed him soundly.

Then she did think of something that made her gasp in alarm, one hand going to her mouth. She’d almost forgotten the reason she’d been so looking forward to today, with her afternoon now booked up with an unexpected appointment with Szayel, an Espada that truly unnerved her. Tesra turned to her, instantly on alert and Tatsuki looked up at her, as if searching for what might have caused Rangiku’s eyes to go wide.

“Our shopping baskets! The kimonos! We left them at the 4th Division!”


	26. Pater Familias

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was entirely written by my beta Black Fox

The first sake bottle had been, he told himself, for his nerves.

He’d consumed the second bottle in an effort to slow his heart rate.

By the time he’d polished off the third bottle, it was all he could do to quell the panic that had bloomed in his chest.

The fourth bottle proved to be a waste of time. It made his tongue curl up in an effort to spare itself further harm.

Now, clutching his fifth bottle of sake in as many hours, his body draped unceremoniously over a wooden bench in one of the less-desirable Rukongai Districts, Nnoitra Gilga looked out over the river that flowed between the 78th District and the better stretches of the Seireitei on its far banks. The early spring had seen the river surrender its ice and this close to sunset, the water gleamed gold and orange, reflecting the changing sky. Here and there, he could see flashes of reflected sunlight, glittering across the liquid surface like scattered diamonds.

He had no idea why drinking wasn’t working. It usually worked.

It wasn’t supposed to go like this.

He hadn’t signed on for this shit.

What the hell was he supposed to fucking do now?

Tipping his head back, he let more of the alcohol slide down his throat, feeling it scorch a path along the back of his throat and join the other four bottles where they lay in his gut, doing nothing useful.

When Aizen had approached Nnoitra, long ago, in his quest to build an army, he’d promised him enough power to take on any foe he wanted. Nnoitra had leapt at the chance to grow stronger, faster, and more deadly. He’d even allowed Tesra to follow his example, as the ankle biter had always done, when he had accepted the power of the Hogyoku and become one of Aizen’s Arrancar.

Nnoitra had done one better after the removal of the majority of his mask and attained the rank of Espada. He was an official, card-carrying badass. The majority of the Seireitei trembled and bowed when he walked by like the subservient little cockroaches they were, scuttling to get out of his way before he crushed them underfoot. Only the higher-ranking Espada and Aizen himself paid him little heed, which was fine by him. He’d done his part for Aizen’s Victory and he’d been amply rewarded for it. The Seireitei was just bursting with all sorts of things with which to indulge oneself: food, drink, violence, gambling, more drink. Now that Szayel’s flimsy Defence Net had fallen, he had the opportunity to partake in an every-other-day butt kicking session with a bunch of oversized insects that were too stupid to tell a bug with real credibility and power had outclassed them.

Best of all, he had a lusciously curved female with glorious tits, a perfect ass, and a body he could lose himself in whenever he wished. She had a mouth made for sin and he had a Claim, and his hands, all over it. Ran was a prize he swore he’d never get tired of taking, time and time and time again. She couldn’t overpower him, couldn’t best him in combat and there was only one place for a female like that: underneath him, wailing as he slid in and out of her and lapped at the blood from the wound he made in her neck while he pumped her full of his reiatsu.

Sure, he’d had to teach her a few lessons about the rules that governed male and female Arrancar at the beginning, but then she wasn’t a female Hollow. Nnoitra had expected to have to break her into her proper role, which was arching her back for him, keeping the den clean and his stomach filled. The negative emotions she’d fed him for the first several years hadn’t bothered him nearly as much as her insistence that she was something other than his. He couldn’t beat the understanding into her; Ran wasn’t stupid, but she was willful, and he’d resorted to the chain on her ankle to serve as a reminder that she was no longer her own mistress. He knew she hated it, but until she figured out she was his and that all other considerations were secondary to what the pack leader wanted, the chain would stay.

Besides, he thought smugly, it looked good on her. Best bit of jewellery he’d ever bought her.

When fighting him outright didn’t work, she turned sneaky with the sex and that’s where things had gone off the rails as far as he was concerned. He might have let things get out of hand, culminating with the situation he faced presently.

Nnoitra was used to negativity. He thrived on it, enjoyed exercising his control over others, enjoyed besting others and taking pleasure in his wins, both off and on the battlefield. He’d taken her out, showed her off, let her dress up and drink in some of the best restaurants still operating in the 1st District and that had at least cut through the gloom she inflicted on him. Letting her fight, even if it had been a blow to his ego, had earned him some gratitude. However, nothing could have prepared him for what had happened next. He hadn’t expected, on the night Aizen decided to give back the captives’ Zanpakuto that he’d get to feel anything more than the same kind of grudging thanks.

It had been unbe-fucking-lievably fantastic, to be buried in her while she flooded him with joy, drunken giddiness, and genuine lust. Just remembering it now, soaked in sake as he was, made his cock twitch a bit.

It was the first time he’d ever experienced that sort of bliss and he’d been hooked. That, he figured, was when it began, after he’d gone soft on her, after he’d started to give in to her machinations just to feel that combination of physical and emotional sensations again.

After that one, mind-blowing night, if Ran wanted anything special, she used that incredible body of hers to earn it from him. It didn’t matter how small it was, she’d turn those pretty, sky-blue eyes on him, flutter her lashes at him and then flutter her tongue over the head of his shaft and before he knew it, he’d be promising the moon to her. Some time with the girls at Starrk’s den? Fine, as long as she did that talented thing with her mouth. A chance to go to the garment District? She’d been on her knees for that one too, a position he never tired of seeing her in. A baby shower? If he remembered right, she’d caught him in the actual shower while she’d made that request and had bloody well swallowed him whole.

Showers. Babies. Showers and babies.

Nnoitra’s head suddenly hurt and not from the cheap rice wine.

He’d grown complacent over the last five years, getting used to the small bits of happiness he could feel from Ran. Those moments had increased in number when Tesra had snagged one of the three human women still in the Seireitei as a mate. That his fraccion had the balls to go to Ulquiorra and ask for Tatsuki made Nnoitra strangely proud. Tesra had a spine and shagging Ulquiorra’s property, at her request, and then Claiming it was evidence of that. The girl had a brain, some spunk, knew many interesting things and most importantly, kept Nnoitra’s pet content with her company. The fact that Tesra practically walked on air these days didn’t hurt either, though he was sure his fraccion’s vicious edge would return if anything threatened either female.

Yes, life had been damn great for Nnoitra Gilga.

Until today.

He took another swig of the sake, realized the bottle was nearly empty and tossed his head back with a groan when he also realized he didn’t have another bottle.

Twins.

She was having twins.

Bugger.

_Bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger_ _…_

On one level, he knew that a pregnancy was a possibility, once Szayel’s ‘pet’… well, Nnoitra wasn’t sure if she was a machine or a Shinigami, but whatever the fuck she was, she’d whelped out twins for the pink sneak. That had been a surprise but it was Szayel and the tricky bastard had probably done something to the bitch to get those kinds of results. The only other hybrid pregnancies involved human mothers.

Then Barragan’s pet got knocked up and that threw everyone for a loop.

Of course, it hadn’t really changed his habits with his own female. After nearly fifteen years and taking her at least four times a week, if not more often, Nnoitra had assumed that if it were going to happen, it would have happened by now.

Apparently, he’d rolled the equivalent of snake eyes this time.

What in the Realms was he going to do with twins?

He decided he wasn’t nearly drunk enough to deal with this, but he’d purchased the last sake bottle the tavern-owner had and the little man had bolted up the shop after handing him what he had left in stock. He was sure he’d only paid for two bottles, receiving five as he’d gotten the bum’s rush out of the bar. His coin was out as well, since the credit card was back at the den, locked up in the room that Tesra occasionally used as an office for his and Nnoitra’s paperwork. Nnoitra rarely set foot in it. Tesra was much better at dealing with the boring, pain-in-the-ass reports that Aizen occasionally required. Tesra, he would also admit, had the patience for it and as no one had complained about the quality of what the piglet had submitted over the years, Nnoitra was happy to let his fraccion keep doing the grunt work if it made him feel useful.

Maybe patience and the ability to adapt was a hallmark of those Hollows with only one soul to their name. Neither of those things had ever been Nnoitra’s strong suit and he’d never felt the lack of them before now. What was worse was that Tesra was expecting a cub of his own, with that mate of his and Nnoitra wasn’t sure if there wasn’t some great, grand conspiracy afoot meant to rope him into a lifestyle he had zero interest in living. Perhaps it was something in the water supply, put there by Szayel no doubt. The Seventh would do just that sort of thing too, if only so that the pink bastard could collect more data.

There was a word for what Tesra’s spawn would make of him once it was born and it caused Nnoitra to shudder in horror. If he looked at the hand holding the bottle, he was sure it would be trembling. That, or he was totally plowed and it was a side effect of the liquor. Would it be too much to ask, he silently inquired of the bottle, which was having the damnedest time deciding if it wanted to be one bottle or three depending on how he moved his head, if he could have the numbing oblivion he’d sought when he’d downed its four other siblings? 

The bottle did not respond and the word he refused to use to describe himself wafted through his brain anyway.

_Grandpa._

He groaned aloud. The sound startled a couple of pigeons roosting in a nearby tree and they fled in a frenzy of flapping wings and squawks. Nnoitra sent them off with a glare that would have dropped them from the sky had his eye been capable of sending off rounds of buckshot.

It wasn’t as if Tesra was _his_ cub. It wasn’t as if he’d spawned the runt himself. All he’d done was to refrain from making a meal of the kid when he’d happened on the remains of Tesra’s mother. For the first few years, he’d had a daily debate with himself about the undersized straggler: will I eat the little shit today or give him another day to prove his worth? Sure, once the brat had shown he had potential, Nnoitra had relented and tucked Tesra into the ‘Do not consume’ category, a short list if there ever was one, but giving the label of ‘father’ to what he was to Tesra would be a mistake, an exaggeration.

_He_ _’_ _s my servant, he does his job for the most part, he_ _’_ _s loyal to a freakin_ _’_ _fault, and I_ _’_ _ll kick the shit out of anything that goes after him in return. It_ _’_ _s a real simple relationship, nothing complicated, emotional, mushy, or sentimental_ _…_

_So why can_ _’_ _t I get these two words out of my goddamned head? Why can_ _’_ _t I drink_ _‘_ _em out of my brain?_

He’d made an unexpected stop by Szayel’s Division this afternoon to ask for his pet’s results, to see for himself what he’d inadvertently planted inside her. Szayel hadn’t been there, but his expressionless mate had ushered him into one of the rooms closer to the main doors and pulled up the files for him, on a huge screen that hung against one of the walls.

Nnoitra must have asked questions, because the Shinigami had provided him with replies that he couldn’t exactly remember. Instead, he’d stared up at the images of two, tiny things surrounded by the translucent shadows of an egg’s membrane, almost mirror images of one another and the rest of the afternoon had become a blur. They weren’t much right now, but in a few months…

The sunset’s light hurt his eyes and instead of leaning backwards, he decided that holding his head between his knees would stop the sudden dizziness that grabbed him and pushed him mentally and physically off-balance.

_Twins. Grandpa. Twins. Grandpa. TwinsGrandpaTwinsGrandpa_ _…_

“Nnoitra-sama?”

He realized that he wasn’t alone and turned bleary eyes to a vague, sandy blond-and-white blob that had materialized to his right, out of arm’s reach if he remained sitting on the bench, but close enough for Nnoitra to hear it speak.

“Still… followin’ meh aroun, eh Teshra?”

The blob nodded and gave him an abbreviated bow.

“Rangiku-san is at the 4th Division, helping with some of the less critical cases from yesterday’s battle. I accompanied her and left her in Unohana’s care. She should be well-protected there and I will collect her at the appointed hour, sir.”

The piglet’s features swam into sudden view and Nnoitra experienced a flash of vertigo as his vision wavered back and forth from fuzzy to sharp.

“I then came to see if you needed anything, sir. These aren’t your usual stomping grounds. Are you quite alright, sir?”

_Not really_ , he thought. _I_ _’_ _ve just had a fucking rug pulled out from underneath me. I didn_ _’_ _t want children and now I_ _’_ _m going to have yours and fucking TWINS underfoot from here on out_ _…_

“D’ya realize jush how inshultin’ that question is, boy?”

“Sir?”

“Implyin’ that there’s somethin’ wr… wrong wif’ meh? Jus’ like tha… insuf… insuffra… that bitch Nel…”

He hauled his upper body back into an upright position and then tried to turn to glare at his underling. Unfortunately, his equilibrium seemed to have called it a day and as he pivoted his hips he ended up on his back on the bench, knocking the back of his head on the hard wood of the seat and nearly sliding off of the whole thing. Luckily, his right hand encountered the back of the bench and he latched on to it with one long arm. Seconds stretched into minutes as Nnoitra gazed up at reddening sky, a few gold-tinted clouds drifting overhead.

“No sir. Just seeing if you required anything.”

“More sake.”

“If I may, how many bottles have you consumed so far, sir?”

Nnoitra tried to tally it up in his head and had to resort to a sidelong look at the empty soldiers lying on the ground in front of the bench to get a total.

“F…five, ‘ncludin’ thish one…”

He waved the last sake bottle, clutched in his left hand and sloshed the last of the contents over the ground before the bench. “Whoooooppsshh… fuck…”

“Can I inquire why you’re drinking, Nnoitra-sama?”

“Cuz I fuckin’ FELT like it!!!” Nnoitra roared back, the alcohol serving to knock down what few filters he had in place. “M’ an Eshpa… an Eshpahha… a fuckin’ adult, and I doan need yer approval, Teshra m’boy.”

“Of course not, Sir.”

“Beshides… arn’ you worried about…”

“Tatsuki-chan sir? No, not really. She’s home making that teriyaki beef dish…”

“Wi’ th’ peppers an’ carrots…?”

Despite the stomach full of rice liquor, Nnoitra couldn’t help but prick up his ears as he heard that somewhere, someone was throwing together his favourite dish.

“…and the broccoli. Of course sir. Since Rangiku-chan will be at the 4th Division this evening, I thought you might like to dine with us tonight, before I go to fetch her back for you.”

“Oh.”

With some effort, Nnoitra pulled his body back into a sitting position, swaying a little as he extended his arms out along the back of the bench to keep him from joining the empty sake bottles at his feet. Gingerly, the white blob that was Tesra sat down on the end of the bench, still beyond immediate reach.

“Are you upset sir?”

That, he thought, was a good question. Maybe he was, but the real issue to him was, ‘what was he really angry about?’ 

He truly hadn’t wanted children. Snotty, loud, smelly, troublesome, tiresome, attention-demanding brats that turned a female’s attention away from its proper target, him, and consumed it all themselves. Whiny, crying, argumentative, sniffling little monsters that needed constant supervision, feeding, bathing, wiping, changing…Tesra had at least had the decency to be a mostly self-sufficient runt, but he was a product of Hueco Mundo’s harsh environment and Nnoitra’s brand of caregiving, which could only charitably be labelled ‘benign neglect.’

In addition, he had two of the things on the way. Szayel’s mate had pointed out the beginnings of what the scientist had determined were pairs of delicate wings, sprouting from what would eventually be each child’s shoulders. Nnoitra didn’t know if he ought to be proud or terrified and terror had triumphed after a brief struggle that left his pride bleeding in one of his mental alleys. He’d just nodded to the woman with the dark braid when she handed him a folder of papers, a copy of the pregnancy report and wandered, in a state of shock, out the doors of Szayel’s Division. He’d ended up here, drunk on a bench with his fraccion hovering just like that stuck-up, patronizing she-antelope, assuming he was at less than one-hundred percent when it came to strength.

Then again, Nnoitra would be the first to admit that standing, presently, might be a real problem. Blinking was also difficult. Staring blankly into the sunset probably wasn’t helping.

“Yer happy about thish, Tesra, aren’t ya?” he muttered sullenly.

“Ah?”

“Th’ kid.”

“Quit, sir. Very happy. We’d planned to have them someday. It just worked out this way for us.”

“Uugh. Two of ‘em, Teshra…hic… two. I…pulled a deuce…”

“Yes sir. Congratulations, sir.”

“Mmrrgh…”

The worst part, he thought, wasn’t that his life was going to consist of nothing but babies, babies, babies, ‘round the clock babies.

The worst part had been feeling the fright radiating from Ran when he’d walked in the room. Sure, he’d removed what he thought was the problem, the bitch with the needle, but that wasn’t the cause of his property’s panic. He hadn’t felt anything like that from her in over a goddamned decade. It came off her like sheets of rain falling from a thunderstorm…

…and she’d directed all of it towards him. It was as if the last six or so years had never happened as he was back to being the thing she hated and feared the most. If he didn’t know any better, he swore that she’d stabbed him somewhere inside, as she’d tried to get away from him. That she’d even equate him with that senile, dementia-ridden shirt-lifter Barragan floored him. While the last thing he’d wanted to do was raise a bunch of squalling runts, toys underfoot and draining him of all energy and sake money, it was one thing to tell her he had no interest in getting her in the family way. It was another to order the death of a cub or toss out a perfectly fine female because of a pregnancy.

For fuck’s sake, Nnoitra thought, _he_ had a few bloody _standards_ that he went by and killing a cub before anyone knew if it would be tough enough to be a decent member of the pack was utterly beneath him. If he were the sort to pull that kind of dick move, he’d have had Tesra as the centerpiece of a luau long ago.

The Second, in his opinion, had lost a few of his marbles when Aizen overthrew him and the geriatric fuck been scrambling ever since to find something to replace his lost prestige. It wasn’t as if the bony old fart had an army to command anymore and the only people who called him ‘His Majesty’ these days were the ones he forced to ride his withered, wrinkled flagpole. While it didn’t stop him from inviting the bone-bag over for poker night, Nnoitra just couldn’t see the logic in tossing a female with an unborn cub out into the cold.

“If I may, sir, Tatsuki and I will certainly help ease the burden. We’ll be taking on Ggio’s cub as well as our own. Yours will not lack for supervision or for playmates.”

The Espada groaned and sank lower on the bench, long legs splayed out and heels digging into the dirt.

“Wha’ ‘m I gonna do with kids, Teshra?”

His fraccion was silent for a long while, as the sun sank below the horizon and their shadows stretched out behind them, long distorted fingers of darkness that stretched out towards the center of the Seireitei.

“I don’t follow sir.”

“Ran says she… she did her paren…ting already. Wif the one tha’ blonde bitch Claimed…”

“Well, that explains their closeness at the parties.”

“Said she didn’ wan’ em either. N… now this.”

“If I may say so, she seems to have changed her mind about that.”

“No shit. Bu… but why? Doesn’ make any fuggin’ sense!”

“Females change their minds frequently. One gets used to it.”

Their shadows began to fade in the gathering gloom as more of the sun disappeared below the horizon and for a second, Nnoitra imagined himself back in Hueco Mundo, parked out on one of the rock outcroppings that had served as shelter for the two of them. His form had changed drastically since then, but then, so had Tesra’s, and not just because the other had taken on a far more human-looking body. His shadow was that of a grown man, not a boy and when he spoke, it was as the adult that Nnoitra had allowed him to become.

“I think you’ll do a good job, sir.”

Nnoitra’s sake-soaked brain took a minute to sort that out and he turned to glare at his subordinate with what he hoped was look that conveyed all of his irritation. Tesra didn’t seem very intimidated by it.

“Not… not in…inner…innereshted in th’ job, period.”

“Hmm.”

“Whash’tha’ shupposhed to mean?”

“Oh, nothing sir.”

“Shpill it, piglet…”

Tesra sighed as the sky faded from orange and red to purple, a faraway look in the runt’s eye.

“I think between the four of us, we’ll manage. Your pet has experience, and I have you as a role model. You looked out for me, but didn’t coddle me and I became much stronger for it… and just think of how envious those who have yet to impregnate their pets will be when they hear about your success.”

Nnoitra’s chin dropped to his chest. It didn’t really matter what he wanted anyway at this point. He was going to end up living in a den filled with diapers, bottles and crying at all hours of the night, sleep deprivation. If that was ‘success,’ he’d hate to think what ‘failure’ looked like.

“If it is any consolation, sir, it’s certain that your children will surpass Ajuga Jaegerjaquez in power and potential. You are, after all, stronger than her father.”

He supposed Tesra said this to make him feel better about the whole affair. It was true… he was stronger than Grimmjow and Nnoitra’s cubs would be stronger still. Ran certainly had more power than that mouthy human tart the Sixth had mated, so that would only add to their strength. Then another thought tagged along with that one and he slapped his forehead with the heel of his hand.

“Ya realize wha’ thish means, righ’?”

“Sir?”

The Fifth Espada, with some trial and error, cradled his head in his hands. If he had a den full of cubs, it meant that he couldn’t have a den full of potential predators. Barragan might not want his fraccion’s cub or pet, but if the geezer had thought Ajuga worthy of taking, what would he do if, Kami forbid, Ran gave him a daughter?

“P… Poker nigh’s off.”

He wasn’t sure, but he thought that Tesra actually seemed relieved about that.

“Unless, sir, you limited the participants to those who are mated with children.”

Nnoitra took in that short list and groaned again. He couldn’t imagine sitting around a card table with Ulquiorra, Grimmjow and Szayel. At some point, either he or Grimmjow would attempt to kill one another and reluctantly, he acknowledged that no one had a more unreadable face than the Fourth. The bastard would probably clean up at the table.

“Ish off once th’ cubs ‘r born.”

“A wise move, sir. I always preferred the games with just our pack.”

“Cuz’ yer mate deals…”

“Yes, she does do that well…”

His fraccion was suddenly at his elbow, helping him stand and hooking an arm around his waist.

“We goin’ t’ get more… hic… sake?”

“No sir. Broccoli and beef. Maybe some strong coffee too.”

“A’right. I c’n walk on m’own, Teshra…” he growled, slurring the words.

“Of course you can, Nnoitra-sama”

The arm around his waist didn’t budge, nor did the pair of shoulders that supported his left arm, which was just as well, as the Espada’s feet didn’t feel up to the task of walking back to the small house Tesra shared with his human woman. As much as his pickled brain wanted to shut down and not deal with the problem that had just slapped him upside the head, he couldn’t help the instinctual thoughts that traipsed through his sodden gray matter.

“Gonna need a bigger den.”

“Undoubtedly, sir.”

“Mebbe… have all’a us unner one roof…”

“Another brilliant idea, master. Easier to defend.”

“She’s really makin’ teriyaki beef?”

“Yes sir. I’ll have her make a double portion for you.”

“Yer an esh… exchell… great kid.”

“Thank you sir. I had a good teacher.”

“Doan’ push it...hic!”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Nnoitra-sama.”

Darkness fell and Tesra did his best to wrangle his tottering superior in the direction of ‘home,’ leaving a tipsy Nnoitra to ponder a few things, now that the booze had lifted the restraints he normally kept on certain things in his head. There were only two things, which made him feel utterly inadequate in his existence as a Hollow.

The first had long, turquoise-colored hair, eyes the color of a sandstorm and a body that, if he was honest with himself, was a little too similar to the one he would have curled up next to him later on tonight. No matter what he’d done, no matter how powerful he’d been or how many times he’d tried to fight her, to prove to her he was better, faster, stronger than she, Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck had turned aside his blade and ground him into the sand. Worse, she’d added a series of pitying looks to each defeat, as if to say, ‘you’ll never be good enough to overcome me, why are you bothering with this?’

The defeats he could have taken, but the insults she’d tacked on to them, the derisive assumption that he needed help, that he needed any kind of assistance or protection... that had been the tipping point. It was too much for a warrior like him to stomach, especially when she’d followed him around on Aizen’s assignments complaining about the kills he made, looking down on him with those too-knowing eyes, as if she could see all of the imperfections in him. Oh, he’d hated her for it and eventually, he’d made her pay for her snobbery, though not in the way he would have preferred.

That he hadn’t really been strong enough to take her down on his own occasionally bothered him, as did what happened after he’d cracked her mask. She should have reverted to an Adjuchas, should have devolved into the creature she’d been before Aizen touched her with that jewel of his, just as her fraccion had when he’d torn their masks off by force.

Instead, she’d turned into a squalling brat, little more than a lisping human toddler, but still an Arrancar. For some reason, he’d hated her even more after she’d changed, his intentions thwarted yet again. He’d planned to return a few hours later and devour what was left of her, only to find the damaged goods gone. She and the two imbeciles who had served her had crawled off into the sands of Hueco Mundo and Nnoitra had thought that his days of feeling inferior were over, if not in the most satisfying of ways.

The second had happened this afternoon, when against his better judgment, he’d dropped into the Seventh Espada’s lair and got the full story on Ran’s pregnancy. She’d said nothing to him about carrying two children, but then, he didn’t know if she knew what he did. She hadn’t brought any information back to the den and she’d said nothing about it to him when he’d come home each evening. Concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other, Nnoitra remembered that he had told her that the children were ‘hers’ to deal with. She’d been subdued ever since she’d found out, contemplative, her mind probably on the cubs within her, rather than on anything else, or him for that matter.

How could two tiny creatures, both so small that they could fit into the palm of his hand and leave plenty of room to spare, make him feel ten times more defective than Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck ever managed, even on the bitch’s most condescending day?

He was going to need more sake… lots more sake.

“Chocolate, sir. We should get some.”

Just like that, Tesra’s voice cut through the mental, alcohol-induced fog and he looked down at his fraccion, who seemed hell-bent on dragging his Espada off for a nice little domestic dinner. All he managed was a look that managed to combine a certain amount of nausea with just enough confusion to make Tesra pause.

“Wha?”

“I can go to the Living World and get a few cartons of chocolate ice cream to keep stashed in the refrigerator. The Sixth Espada mentioned it a month or so ago.”

“Whaddya mean, easier? Izzat medicine or sumthin’?”

“No sir. I mean, it will help make their pregnancies easier on _us_. It’s for safety’s sake. I hear females throw things, inanimate objects, around a lot as things progress, usually at the closest available male. Grimmjow told me privately that chocolate was the only thing that kept him alive when Karin-san got moody. I think it was a warning.”

Nnoitra wasn’t entirely sure if an actual _whimper_ didn’t escape him upon hearing that. Either Tesra failed to notice such a weak sound, or he chose to ignore it. He did move out from underneath the Espada’s arm and pointed the much taller Arrancar at the closest shrub with a sigh of resignation. Nnoitra was about to open his mouth to protest when it suddenly became very important to him to open his mouth for another reason entirely.

When he finished retching up the four-and-three-quarter bottles of alcohol that he’d pounded down earlier, the Fifth Espada drew himself up to his full height. He wrapped the shreds of his dignity around him like a tattered banner and vowed to replace what he’d just surrendered with Tatsuki’s cooking, even if he were on the queasy side and his steps were still uneven.

It was as if there was a mountain hanging over his head, just waiting to fall on him and due to the size of the thing, there was nowhere to run. At some point, it was going to crush him. It was just a matter of time, a little over five months if that freak Szayel was right.

“Don’t worry, Nnoitra-sama. You’ll make a fine father.”

“Teshra?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Gonna rip yer arms off if ya doan shut it.”

“Shutting it, sir.”


	27. Traitor!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A chapter full of feels

Hana walked home with Toshiro, intent on spending the lunch hour with her fellow fraccion and their Mistress. Sung Sun and Apache had lunch ready for them and the discussion topic for the day seemed to be little Vindula-chan. The consensus seemed to be that Vindula was just too adorable for her own good. Szayel and his pet, Renji, were very protective of the children, so not many got to see the twins, especially after the incident where two, lower ranked Numeros had foolishly tried to take the young girl. Harribel was of the opinion that the attack wouldn’t have happened had Szayel not been holding onto his Espada rank by the thinnest of threads. The topic then veered off into speculation about Vindula’s father. Hana, thanks to her association with Ajuga, knew quite a bit more about Szayel than her fraccion ‘siblings,’ but listening to Harribel’s take on him was eye-opening.

The fact that Szayel was Karin’s ‘pet’ was hardly a secret. Aizen had forced him to announce his ‘decision’ to accept Karin as his mistress in front of the entire Arrancar population, confessing that he had willingly submitted to Grimmjow’s Claim. As a result, Szayel seldom left his domain, preferring to stay hidden behind whatever traps and barriers he’d laid for intruders. In that sense, his behaviour hadn’t changed much from when he’d lived in Las Noches. By declaring himself the property of a mere human woman, anyone who could manage to kill him would be entitled to his rank, and all he owned, his Division, his Claimed property, and his children. In a sense, having children had put him in even _more_ danger than before and Vindula, a naturally born female, would be a fine prize.

Luckily, Szayel was still more than a match for the average Numeros, even if he appeared weak on the exterior. In addition, very few wanted to incur the wrath of the Sixth Espada by attacking his pet. Grimmjow’s ferocious temper was a well-known deterrent, as was his possessiveness. Anyone who wanted to kill the Seventh would have to strike and kill Szayel quickly, before the one that held his Claim could respond to his distress. Harribel thought anyone suicidal enough to try to make a play for Vindula, or take out her father knowing the obstacles, should try for him anyway and thus take him or herself out of the breeding pool via their own stupidity. There were very good reasons that she’d forbidden her girls to set foot anywhere near Szayel’s domain before the War. She hadn’t been as concerned about Szayel’s power as much as his treachery and penchant for sneakiness. Hana could see where her mistress might get that idea

She sighed regretfully as she polished off the last of her fish and rice and laid her chopsticks in the proper position to indicate she was finished.

“I should get home. I _am_ late and Starrk-ji promised to play a game of shoji with me before I go out on patrol tonight.”

“Remember to report in this evening before picking up your patrol assignment,” Toshiro reminded her.

“Of course. Taichou, Harribel-sama,” she replied and bowed her head to her two superiors. “Thank you for lunch, Harribel-sama. It was delicious.”

“It’s so wonderful to see you get along so well with the First,” Sung Sun smiled happily, as Hana rose from her seat. “Considering your history…”

“History?” Hana asked, pausing halfway up. “What history?”

She noticed her Taichou’s eyes staring into his teacup, his hand frozen in mid-air.

“You know, how things happened in the war and all,” Mila Rose waved her hand in the air, as if that explained everything. Her words did nothing to dispel Hana’s confusion.

“Oh, I… don’t really know much about the Winter War, other than Aizen-Kami ascended the Throne,” Hana admitted. The history curriculum at the academy slanted heavily in Aizen’s favour, so she’d paid it only as much attention as required to earn decent marks.

“You mean you don’t know?” Sung Sun exclaimed, lavender eyes full of surprise and growing wider above the sleeve she held before her mouth.

“Girls,” Harribel’s cool, commanding voice broke into the conversation and all three of her fellow fraccion suddenly found whatever remained on their plates to be of utmost interest. Hana could only blink in confusion at the instantaneous change.

_It was a war. Aizen-kami_ _’_ _s forces fought against the Shinigami forces and won. There used to be thirteen Divisions. Now there are only five. Obviously a lot of people died, including my father_ _…_

She forced herself to stop thinking there.

“I should get going home,” she suddenly announced, standing up to leave.

“See you tomorrow Hana-chan,” Apache called out and waved, the other two girls giving similar goodbyes, but Hana hardly noticed it.

Sung Sun and Mila Rose’s words and her Taichou’s reaction to them bothered her more than it probably should have during her trip home. Hana could have interpreted their remarks any number of ways, but for some reason they left an uncomfortable feeling bubbling in the back of her brain. Starrk had been a part of her life from the moment of her birth, had watched her take her first steps and heard her first words. He taught her how to play shoji when she took an interest in the game while watching him and ‘take-ji play. Lilynette, before Ajuga’s birth and before Grimmjow and Karin came to live at the Estate, was her first playmate, her first babysitter and fellow conspirator in the annual ‘let’s soak Starrk-ji’ contest. Why would she have cause for animosity towards the man and the girl who were… well, who were almost as much a father and a sister to her as much as ‘take-ji and Ajuga-chan?

She had no good answer that might settle the uneasiness kindled by the cut-off conversation and she backed off from pursuing it any further.

Hana made it back to the Estate, but was disappointed to learn that Starrk was not at home. Aizen had ordered him out on patrol, or more accurately, Lilynette admitted to skipping out on patrols and as Starrk was technically responsible for her behaviour, he’d been dragged, yawning, into her punishments as well.

The only one home was Karin, who had two more days to go before Unohana declared she could return to full active duty. Since Hana had patrol that evening, and Karin was buried in paperwork, she decided to get some rest. Night patrols were a bitch, but everyone had to take a turn on the rotation, even Toshiro. She passed her mother, just returning home, on her way out of the Estate’s front gate.

“Evening patrol?” her mother asked.

“Yes, I promise to be careful.”

She said the words before her mother could give her the warning herself. Nanao just shook her head and gave her child a quick embrace before shooing her on her way.

“I know you well,” her mother replied. “You won’t take any unreasonable risks.”

Once at the 3rd Division, Hana checked in with her Fukutaichou to get her assigned route for the evening. The majority of the Arrancar, aside from the assorted hybrid children, had their own patrols. The more reasonable of the Numeros often ended up paired with a Shinigami to provide a second set of eyes on a route that might require one, such as a section of thick forest or rough terrain. Tonight, her superiors had scheduled her to run her route with an Arrancar whose face she recognized, probably from crossing paths with him in the past, even if she didn’t know his name. He gave her a brief nod of his head before he disappeared in another flash of Sonido. It was more of an acknowledgement than most Shinigami below the level of ‘Taichou’ ever received.

Harribel and her girls made certain to spread the word that the Third had accepted Hana as one of her fraccion, and that anyone caught ‘bothering’ her, as Harribel worded it, would answer to the Espada herself. Hana also suspected that Grimmjow and Starrk had put their own little warnings out over the years as well.

The sun was just setting, lighting up the sky in shades of orange and brilliant purple when she felt it. It was hard to overlook Starrk and Lilynette’s reiatsu, rising and falling in a way that could only mean they were fighting. There didn’t seem to be any sign of Swarm activity, or at least, a Swarm invasion force. Hana supposed he could have stumbled across a rogue scout, but one insect would hardly cause the First to fight for more than a few seconds. Therefore, she concluded he and Lilynette must be training. Their reiatsu lacked any kind of agitation or panic, so she doubted he’d encountered anything he felt he couldn’t handle.

She had never seen Starrk and Lilynette train before and the urge to see Starrk’s fighting style for herself was incredibly tempting...

_They are not too far off my patrol route._

Starrk usually fought with ‘take-ji and his Division, well away from her own unit and Hana had not so much as caught a glimpse of his Resurrección. Now would be the perfect time to take a quick detour and see what Coyote Starrk could do.

Her side-trip rationalized, she made her way towards the spot where she assumed the nominal head of her household had decided to train. Hana was nearly on top of the two before she realized that something was ‘off’ and came to a halt. Reaching out with her awareness, she was surprised to find another reiatsu signature hidden beneath Starrk and Lilynette’s, one that Hana didn’t recognize. It felt like nothing she had ever encountered before. Curiosity turned to apprehension and she cloaked herself to the best of her ability. Given the extracurricular Kido training her mother had given her, her ability to hide her presence was more than adequate for a little spying. She wasn’t as good at Ajuga at ‘disappearing,’ but then, her friend’s talent was something unto itself.

Hana heard the conflict before she even saw the battle and now she did stop. Starrk wasn’t involved in sparring, or training someone else, or any of the other scenarios that flashed through her brain. Her conscience tugged at her to immediately sound the alarm, but another, competing voice, the one that listened to Ajuga a little too often, told her to keep going and to investigate further.

 _No one other than Aizen is stronger than Starrk-ji,_ she told herself, trying to justify her feet’s decision to keep moving in the direction of the fight.

Indeed, whomever Starrk had engaged was weaker than he was. Hana had hardly noticed the presence at first, which still felt ‘off.’ The reiatsu seemed ‘mixed’ in the same way that Ajuga and Diaemus’s reiatsu was a blend of human and Arrancar reiatsu, but the flavour of it seemed strange. It was as if there were two halves to it, lashing against each other in competition rather than in cooperation like that of her two hybrid friends. She might have mistaken that weaker signature for another hybrid, much as one might mistake a crow for a raven. They were so similar that anyone with less experience around one might mistake it for another. She wondered if he’d encountered a strange Arrancar, considering the power differences.

The thought definitely excited her, and she continued her cautious approach. She didn’t want to end up caught in the crossfire. Power like this might very well snuff her life out before either combatant realized she was there.

Hana finally came to a large clearing, made larger thanks to the piles of leaves and splinters that had once been trees and bushes around the periphery of a smaller clearing Starrk and Lilynette stood on one side of it, Starrk calf-deep in mangled branches and torn-up bark, Lilynette perched on a recently-created tree stump. The male half of the First looked annoyed, though calm enough, while the face of the First’s female side literally glowing red with anger.

They faced two people on the opposite side of the wreckage. The one with a detectable amount of reiatsu looked very much like a short Arrancar with blond pigtails, her horned mask fragment covering her entire face. At least, Hana _thought_ the individual was female. Nothing about the person indicated to Hana that she wasn’t looking at a prepubescent human boy, other than the hairstyle. She could almost taste the poisonous rage rolling off of the odd Hollow from where she stood. The other, whose reiatsu Hana still couldn’t detect from her position, was a leggy, dark-skinned woman with long purple hair. Her expression matched Starrk’s as far as its level of irritation and the hidden Shinigami’s eyes widened once she positively identified the taller woman. After that, Hana easily plucked the name of the other from memory.

The images and stats of those who had escaped Aizen’s grasp, the ‘Escapees’ as they were collectively known, were posted on ‘wanted’ posters all over each Shinigami Division. Aizen’s minions, in turn, tacked those same posters in prominent public places in each of the Rukongai Districts, from the manicured streets of the 1st District down to the dangerous pathways of the 80th District. The faces of Sarugaki Hiyori, a Vizard which explained why she ‘felt’ a little like Diaemus and Ajuga, and Shihoin Yoruichi, which explained why Hana couldn’t detect the woman’s presence, had been posted for the last fifteen years, with the kanji for ‘reward’ in large lettering beneath both.

To her dismay, Hana realized that this was no training match or sparring session.

 _Oh shit,_ she thought. _What are they doing here?_

Indecision kept her rooted in place. Yes, they were wanted fugitives, but only because they still had the balls, figuratively speaking in the case of these two intruders, to stand against Aizen. They had managed to escape being Claimed and enslaved and had the power to both elude and go head-to-head with Aizen’s Arrancar forces.

Her first worry was that they were here to try and assassinate Starrk and Lilynette. It would be a good tactical move to eliminate Aizen’s more powerful warriors, and free the ones they had Claimed in the process, but Hana didn’t think that was the case here. While she could see Shihoin Yoruichi, once the head of both her family and the now-defunct Onmitsukido, doing just that, the woman seemed more exasperated with her companion than ready to fight. However, the other… well, Hiyori certainly didn’t fit the profile of an assassin, not making that kind of racket. If Hana were to guess what had happened, she would say that Starrk and Lilynette had accidentally stumbled across the two invaders carrying out some form of infiltration.

She knew Lilynette, and she could read the type of character Hiyori was just by watching her. No doubt, the two young women had been the instigators of this battle, probably picking the fight the moment they saw each other. They argued with one another, trading barbed insults back and forth like two children flinging food at one another across a dinner table. Starrk just stood there, pinching the bridge of his nose, looking for all the world like he simply wanted to walk away from the whole thing and Yoruichi almost seemed amused, if not for a certain ‘wariness’ to her body language, as well as a great deal of impatience with the situation at hand. Maybe the two had had a time limit on how long they could stay in this Realm doing whatever it was they wanted to do.

Once again Hana debated on sounded an alarm. She was under orders to do so if she encountered any of the known Escapees attempting to sneak into the Seireitei, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. These were friends of her mother and ‘take-ji. If she were going to be honest with herself, Hana admitted that she would love to see Aizen dethroned as much as the Escapees would and that she hoped whatever brought them here would help do just that. The fact that neither Starrk nor Lilynette had triggered the alarm that would have brought in backup or alerted the rest of the Divisions to their location also stayed her hand

 _If Starrk-ji wanted to sound an alarm, he would have done so already,_ she told herself.

Hana was simply too far away to hear what they were saying, though she could pick out some of the choicer phrases Hiyori and Lilynette threw at one another at the top of their lungs. Maybe she shouldn’t have been surprised at Lilynette’s vocabulary and Hiyori certainly sounded as if she’d learned to speak in the Gotei 13’s worst barracks. As much as she wanted to hear more than just some creative cursing, she didn’t want to leave the cover of the trees and underbrush and risk revealing her presence. Instead, Hana watched and fretted over what she ought to do. Should she stay here? Should she reveal herself and confront them, or try to get them to leave now that they were outnumbered? Would doing so endanger her and distract Starrk in the process? Should she just leave and let him handle things with the interlopers?

Hiyori charged with the saw-edged meat cleaver that served as a Zanpakuto in one hand and fired a Cero from her mouth, one that Starrk easily blocked. The woman snuck in behind the first blast to attack through the smoke, clearly hoping it would blind her opponent and give her an advantage. Starrk hardly fell for it and with that, the battle was on once more. Hana could only gape, stunned at the deadly display. She had never seen a pair of high-powered opponents go after one another like this. Hiyori furiously assailed her taller rival and Starrk countered her blows with an expression of extreme boredom painted on his face. Lilinette continued to taunt the skinny Vizard from the sidelines, perhaps as a distraction while Yoruichi let out a sigh, never letting her eyes leave the battle. In the meantime, the trees and vegetation around the clearing continued to take a beating. Hana had to wonder how long this would go on before someone other than herself, perhaps her Arrancar counterpart, spotted the melée and sent up a warning to the other patrols.

Starrk danced in and out of Hiyori’s way, moving backwards and weaving between the paths of each Cero Hiyori shot at him, as well as dodging her blade. Hana had to marvel at the amount of power she was able to toss from between the teeth of her mask, as well as Starrk’s ability to avoid each glowing red ball of energy with a bit of footwork. This continued for a minute or two, until the Vizard started using her head and shot a Cero, not at Starrk, but at a spot that she apparently thought he might land while sidestepping a swipe of the cleaver meant to sever his arm. He wasn’t expecting it and while he deftly turned to avoid the worst of it, she tossed one directly at him. It missed and hit a very large pile of what had been a stand of oaks a few feet away. The blast wave and the debris flying through the air temporarily blinded Starrk, his hand reflexively going to shield his eyes…

…which gave his masked opponent the perfect opportunity to whirl to the side and shoot a Cero straight at Lilynette, apparently trying to catch the girl in mid-gloat.

Lilynette was, technically, a bit of Starrk’s power he’d separated from the whole at some point in the past. Hana tended to think of her as a Zanpakuto, in a way, but her strength was nowhere near that of Starrk’s. The little Arrancar’s eyes went wide and Hana reacted instinctively, her reiatsu swelling before she’d even started into a Shunpo.

She used her flash-stepping ability to cross the field in a matter of seconds, frantically chanting the lines for the strongest Kido barrier she knew under her breath, creating the shield in the space before Lilynette just in time to absorb most of the blast. The remainder of it singed Lilynette’s hair and clothing and left her coughing, but she was at least alive and relatively unharmed. Hana skidded to a stop in the vegetative mess next to Lilynette, drawing her own Zanpakuto and levelling it at the Vizard along with a warning glare that she hoped would do her mother proud.

“Are you alright, Lili-chan?”

“Yeah, peachy,” Lilynette growled, letting out another hacking cough and then took a wheezing breath. Then the small Arrancar’s one eye blinked up at Hana, taken aback when she took in her unexpected helper.

“What are you doing here Hana-chan?” she shrieked.

Hana winced and gave her a hard look right back.

“I felt the battle, thought you guys were training, and came to watch,” she replied. That was the truth, she told herself, or at least, most of it.

“Hana… as in Nanao and Shunsui’s daughter Hana?!?!”

The incredulity and outrage in the screechy little Vizard’s voice made Hana look back up. The black and brown eyes behind the mask had gone wide.

“What’s it to you?” Hana shot back, not dropping her combat ready pose even though she was positive that Hiyori would easily be able to remove her before she even saw the Vizard move.

Starrk appeared beside her so fast she almost jumped in surprise. The only ones she was positive that stood a chance of keeping up with him as far as speed was concerned were Diaemus, Ulquiorra and probably Aizen, though she wasn’t sure about the last as he never lowered himself to get involved in any of the battles with the Swarm.

“You… you traitorous bitch!” Hiyori screamed as her mask shattered, revealing the face of a furious young woman. “How could you stand there defending the two them?”

“Hana, you should go,” Starrk said quietly. “Lilynette, you too,” he added. His other half glowered at that.

“C’mon Starrk, we can take them!” Lilynette complained and then coughed again.

“Traitor?” Hana murmured, not understanding why Hiyori would speak to her in such a vicious tone, unless she was angry about the Kido barrier, which was entirely possible.

Her use of the word ‘traitor’ seemed a little harsh. Hana supposed it made sense in a way. Technically, Aizen was the usurper and by supporting Starrk, she was supporting Aizen, but still… calling her a ‘traitor’ was a bit much when, considering the situation that most of the denizens of the Soul Society endured, the word ‘slave’ might have been a better fit.

“Hiyori, we need to leave,” Yoruichi finally called out, appearing next to her companion’s side as quickly as Starrk had materialized next to Hana. “We are obviously already attracting attention and we _cannot_ afford to do that.”

“Fuck that shit!” Hiyori snarled up at Yoruichi and then bared her teeth at Hana. “How could you?!”

The woman was clearly pissed beyond measure, far more pissed than she should have been over something as simple as Hana jumping in to assist Lilinette. In fact, Yoruichi suddenly grabbed Hiyori before the hysterical woman could charge at them, as she clearly wanted to.

“Starrk-ji?” Hana asked uncertainly, turning to look up at him. She wanted to obey his order to retreat, but she wasn’t positive Yoruichi was going to be able to hold Hiyori for long and the Vizard now seemed as if she was hell-bent on going after her! Right now, standing beside, maybe even behind, Starrk seemed like the wisest course of action.

“Ji?”

Hiyori’s body froze for a moment, her mouth hanging open and for a blessed second or two no sound came out of it. Unfortunately, the reprieve was short lived. “You would dare, _dare_ to call the piece of shit who murdered your father ‘ji?’” Hiyori roared, once more fighting violently against Yoruichi’s grip.

Hana hardly noticed that though. Hiyori’s words echoed in her mind and she turned her gaze from the two struggling women to stare up at Starrk in shock.

 _It_ _…_ _it can_ _’_ _t be true_ , her mind wailed, even as a sudden look of guilt crossed Starrk’s face.

“Starrk?” Hana’s voice cracked as she asked this, not wanting to believe it.

He gave a simple nod of his head, unable to look at her, but clearly answering the question. She had known her father had died in the war, but it had never occurred to her that Starrk had been the one to kill him. He was so close to Jushiro, and even her mother. Surely, Jushiro must have known the truth. Yet there was no animosity between them, at least none that Hana had ever been able to detect.

Hiyori’s continuing tirade, steadily increasing in volume and profanity, which Hana had blocked out as her mind raced with what she had learned, suddenly ceased and the woman went limp in Yoruichi’s arms. Starrk and Yoruichi shared some sort of silent communication; neither seemed willing to pursue the conflict any further, given Hiyori’s revelation and the stricken expression on Hana’s face. Yoruichi sent her a pitying look, and then disappeared with a now unconscious Hiyori thrown over her shoulder. No one made to chase after the two.

“You killed him?” Hana asked breathlessly.

She felt caught, as if in a vice grip with someone tightening the handle every few seconds, her lungs abruptly starved for air. Her thoughts skittered every which way and she couldn’t seem to collect them, couldn’t keep the lid on the pot of mice her mind had become. She just couldn’t see it, couldn’t see her father’s blood on the hands of the laid-back man who had helped to raise her. Yet, by his own admission, he had been the one responsible, the one who had killed her father.

“Hana,” Starrk rested a hand on her shoulder and she leaped away from him, staring up at him through tear-clouded eyes.

Hana hadn’t even realized she had begun to cry. Tears streamed down her face, wetting her collar and soaking into the front of her uniform. Dusk had fallen; the sun had disappeared below the horizon while she’d been watching the battle. One by one, stars shimmered into appearance overhead and the light from the full moon rising to the east gave everything it touched a thin silver-edged gilding, including the mangled remains of the clearing and the white uniforms of the two halves of the Espada before her. Starrk’s bowed his head, while Lilinette’s shorter body remained doubled over, her one eye closed and her arms wrapped around her slender frame.

“Why?”

It came out as more of a croak than she might have wanted and it followed a hiccup and a sniffle from her nose, which was starting to run. Starrk didn’t ask for clarification over what she was asking, which, to Hana, was as good as an admission of guilt.

“We were at war. Jushiro and your father ended up fighting Lilynette and I.”

“So you spared ‘take-ji, but not my father? Why?”

“Aizen ascended to the Throne before Jushiro could die, giving us the chance to save him, as your father wished,” Starrk answered. “Hana-chan…”

He tried to touch her again, and she pulled away from him, scrambling over branches and debris to put some distance between them.

“Hana-chan,” Lilynette spoke up, her small voice lanced with pain and rough from the smoke of Hiyori’s Cero.

“SHUT UP!” Hana screamed. “You killed him! Then you took Mother and ‘take-ji, the two closest to him…” she broke into renewed sobs, “…you took them, and you… ‘take-ji…”

Hana was much older now and had a much better grasp of how Claims worked than when she was small. It was something that she had never really thought too much about, other than trying to avoid becoming a target of a Claim. Now the whole ugly subject was spread out before her, the truth unavoidable.

“Tell me,” she hiccupped, hating the sound of her own waspish voice as she cried. “Did you rape ‘take-ji beside my father’s dead body, or did you at least have the decency to bury my father first!”

Starrk’s shoulders slumped now.

“I never ‘raped’ Jushiro. I have always asked his permission first before instigating the Claim,” Starrk answered, his tone muted and eyes downcast. “And yes, we did give Kyoraku-Taichou a proper burial, as was fitting of a warrior who bravely died fighting for what he believed in, before I made any such overtures to Jushiro.”

Hana scrubbed at her eyes as he said this, his hands hanging at his side, fingers listless against the white fabric of his hakama.

“I told Nanao myself that I was the one who killed the man she loved, that I was responsible for his death,” he added softly. “I will not lie to you Hana. His death hurt your mother deeply, even though she understood there was a good chance that Shunsui could die in that battle. She also understood that I had no desire to kill him. We were at war, and during a war, soldiers must do what their commanders order them to do.

“I deeply regret Shunsui’s death, that it could not be prevented. I would like to have gotten to know your father more. I think that, under different circumstances, we could have been good friends.”

Starrk paused, looking up now, not at Hana, but at the slowly rising moon. Hana could see it now, the remorseful expression outlined by moonlight.

“The last words Shunsui spoke to us,” Lilynette spoke up sadly, grief in her own voice, “were to ask us if we could make sure that Shiro-chan and Nanao would stay safe under Aizen’s regime. He asked us to protect those closest to him.”

Hana knew, of course, that many had died during the war, and that Starrk was right. They had been soldiers on either side of the lines. It was just as likely that Kyoraku Shunsui could have killed Starrk and then she would never have gotten to know either him or Lilynette. There was a chance ‘take-ji could have died instead of her father.

“I…”

Starrk tried to come close to her again, reaching his hand out towards her. She slapped his hand away and bolted. Neither Starrk nor Lilynette went after her, but Lilynette did call her name, as if begging her to come back. For now, she wanted nothing do with them. She felt betrayed, and not just by Starrk and Lilynette. Her own mother had known, as had Jushiro, and neither had seen fit to tell her the truth of how her father had died, that she had been living with his killer, playing with the man who had slaughtered him.

She needed somewhere where she could go, somewhere to think. She needed someone to talk to, a shoulder to cry on like the teenaged girl she truly was. At the same time, she was still on duty and if she was going to leave her post, she had better let her Division know about it if she didn’t want to get into trouble. Thinking about her Division made her think of Toshiro, which instantly made her thing about the Third Espada.

Harribel-sama had fought in Karakura at the same time that Starrk and Lilynette… well, she’d been there, she might have seen something, or maybe she knew what occurred first-hand. If anyone could help her make sense of what had happened, it would be the dark-skinned blonde. Conveniently, her Taichou should be with his Mistress at this time of night, meaning she could let him know about aborting her patrol and satisfy the requirements about ‘rules’ that her inner seated officer usually laid on her.

That left her with the emotional devastation of finding out that she had lived her whole life, willingly and happily, with the man who had murdered the father she had never gotten the chance to meet. She only hoped that she’d be able to keep it together long enough to get back to the city that lit up the sky to the west.

Starrk was all too familiar with the pain of loneliness and loss, as was Lilynette. Seeing that sorrow in Hana’s eyes, watching her run from them and leave them alone in that destroyed clearing brought a large chunk of that crushing agony back. Funny how he’d nearly managed to forget what that was like, surrounded as he was on a daily basis by the blended pack at Jushiro’s Estate.

He hadn’t considered what might happen if Hana learned the truth about the battle fifteen years ago. It never crossed his mind that the subject might come up. If it did rear its ugly head, Starrk had always thought that Jushiro or maybe even her mother would have been the one to inform her. Hell, _he_ should have manned up and confessed his deeds to the child himself once she was old enough to understand.

However, no one had told her, whether by oversight or perhaps because the three adults in her life had assumed that the conversation could wait indefinitely. The result was that Hana had to find out like this. Now, here they were, standing alone in a field, abandoned again, this time by the child he had helped raise, protect, care for, let splash him with water and play pranks with Lilynette when she was a little girl, the same girl who called him ‘Starrk-ji’.

When Hana dropped the ‘ji,’ staring at him in horror as if he and Lilynette were strangers, it felt like she’d stabbed him with her blade. What was worse was that the little, foul-mouthed Vizard was only the vehicle, the delivery mechanism for the pain. All of it, Hana’s, his and Lilynette’s, originated with him. He’d caused it, because her father had insisted they fight at higher and higher levels instead of just playing with each other and letting the real combatants work things out as to which side would win. Their particular battle was pointless in the grand scheme of things. He, Barragan and Harribel had been a means to an end for Aizen, nothing more and if his own battle had become inconclusive, it was because there had been no one in that false cityscape that could have stopped Aizen to begin with. The only one who might have stood a chance had never shown up and if Starrk had won or lost became irrelevant the second an unopposed Aizen had created the Ouken within the Seireitei itself.

Nanao had been angry with him for some time, hateful even, but she was a warrior, a Shinigami. She understood and approached him, letting him take her away from the wreckage of the 8th Division to the safety of the Estate. It had taken some time, but she had forgiven him, had even invited him to be there when she gave birth to Hana and to hold her daughter afterwards. When he had asked why she trusted him to hold her child, a daughter whose father would never get to see or know her thanks to him, Nanao had smiled sadly in her after-labour exhaustion and simply stated that ‘Shunsui would want this.’

Their entire world, his and Lilynette’s, had changed as he had held little Hana, the first baby he had ever seen. She was so tiny, so delicate, and so beautiful. She had looked up at him, a small bundle hardly bigger than his hands, and he knew he would die to protect her. He could vividly remember when her eyes opened to look up at him. He had half expected her to start crying, but she hadn’t. She had made a cooing noise and then went to sleep.

The creature he and Lilynette had once been, so powerful that their reiatsu would kill any other Hollows that drew near, even after he/it had halved itself in an attempt to stave off the oppressive loneliness that was their lot, now found itself wounded by that same child. Then again, he supposed that he’d been the one to wound her first.

“Starrk?” Lilynette came up beside him, and he silently pulled her against him, knowing exactly how forsaken she must feel right now. They had been together too long for him not to know. As such, he answered her question before she could ask.

“I do not know if she will ever be able to forgive us for our part in her father’s death.” He responded as honestly as he could. Lilynette’s depression at the thought of losing Hana’s friendship radiated from her small frame, but it matched his own, after all. They had so few friends and it had taken them so long to get the handful they did have. Losing even one hurt them both deeply.

“Jushiro and Nanao forgave us,” he pointed out, closing his eyes and tightening his arms around Lilynette’s shoulders. She buried her face in the shirt of his uniform, her mask fragment digging into his stomach, but at this point, it was nothing compared to the deeper hurt within him, made worse with the addition of guilt “They forgave us in time. They understood.”

“Yeah, they did,” she agreed, but there was very little hope in her girlish voice as she snuffled into the fabric. He reached around and absently stroked her light green hair, rendered silver in the evening’s gloom.

Starrk shared her sentiment, even if that tiny sliver of hope seemed as impossible to grasp as the moonlight around them.


	28. Undertow

There was something satisfying about popping amanatto into one’s mouth, hearing the ‘crunch’ of the beans as their hard, sugary exteriors gave way under one’s molars and the rewarding rush of dark brown caramelized, creamy sweet-bean goodness hit the tongue a few seconds later. The produce stands still contained winter vegetables and ripe watermelons remained only a distant, un-germinated hope, so candied azuki beans it was. It wasn’t that hard of a compromise, considering how hungry he’d been of late.

He’d wanted to dig into the bag on the way home from the marketplace, but restrained himself out of long habit and a desire to avoid looking like an over-eager twelve-year-old. It wouldn’t do to have a seated Taichou be seen stuffing his face with sweets in the middle of the street. Therefore, as much as his gut and his sweet tooth snarled at him to cast caution to the wind and inhale the candies the moment the confectioner dropped them into his hands, he kept the bag tucked into his uniform as he made his way home. The trade-off for his dignity was a growling stomach.

_Where did lunch go? The only thing I accomplished this afternoon involved paperwork and a planning session with four of my seated officers. I shouldn_ _’_ _t be this ravenous._

Hyorinmaru, in a voice that rumbled up to him from the depths of his inner world, chose that moment to voice his opinion.

_‘_ _Power requires sustenance. Training requires sustenance, as does your latest growth spurt. How are your joints feeling, by the way? Do they still ache on occasion?_ _’_

_‘_ _They_ _’_ _re much better, thank you for asking._ _’_

Sighing inwardly, Hitsugaya Toshiro could only acknowledge the wisdom his Zanpakuto whispered to him, his sandals pointing his body down the street that would lead to the house Harribel and her girls had staked out as their ‘den.’ Fortunately, it wasn’t all that terribly far from his Division, a twenty-minute walk at most and that was if he decided to dawdle. It didn’t hurt that his stride had grown longer in the last five years, mirroring the rest of him. He supposed that a foot-and-a-half in height and sixty pounds of accompanying muscle would require ingesting a few more meals. The renewed battles with the Swarm and the frequent use of his Bankai also meant that he felt as if he was running on empty half of the time.

He could remember his appetite as a child, which seemed just this side of insatiable before Matsumoto had dragged him out of the western Rukongai districts to the Academy and the plentiful food available there. At the time, Toshiro knew for a fact that he could almost eat his own weight in watermelon if given half a chance and an adequate supply of fruit. These days his cravings varied, but usually came down to either protein or sweets. He’d consumed at least three bowls of fish and rice for lunch, something Sung Sun glibly commented on once Hana excused herself from the table and left to catch some sleep before her scheduled night patrol. Toshiro grimaced a little, thinking about it. Two of his fellow pedestrians saw his expression, combined with the Taichou’s haori and hurried to give him a wide berth as they passed him, but he hardly noticed their discomfort.

No, today’s cravings had little to do with his perpetually empty stomach. Instead, he’d purchased them to placate his nerves. He and the rest of the household had come dangerously close to walking off of a cliff that none of them had realized was there. After Hana had left, he’d met Harribel’s eyes and to his dismay, she actually seemed a bit… well, ‘shaken’ wasn’t a word he’d ever use to describe her. ‘Taken aback’ seemed a closer fit.

It wasn’t his place to say anything, especially when Hana inadvertently revealed just how in the dark she was about what happened fifteen years ago. Harribel must have felt his heart leap into his throat when Mila Rose brought up what might have become a very explosive topic of conversation. Thankfully, his ‘mistress’ was perceptive. She’d managed to get the three airheads that served as her fraccion to button their lips before they could dredge up something dangerous.

This was exactly why he was no fan of idle chitchat. It was too easy to say the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time even under the best of circumstances. His grandmother had once given him a few words of advice as a boy, before he’d left for the Academy, and that bit of wisdom had kept his hide intact on more than one occasion in the long years since then. ‘It’s better to stay quiet and be thought a fool by others than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.’ It was good advice, particularly useful at the Taichou level.

Toshiro had kept his thoughts to himself until Hana left, and then quietly looked at Harribel. There was enough concern in her ocean-coloured gaze to make him wonder if they’d drawn the same conclusions.

“I think it might be a good idea to speak with Ise-Taichou regarding this issue,” he ventured.

The blonde sitting across from him had nodded, breaking eye contact with him and gazed pensively into her bowl at the few remaining grains of rice in it. Yes, ‘taken aback’ was apt. He guessed that Harribel had overlooked this subject when she and Nanao worked out the details of Hana’s fraccion-hood.

“As usual, you’re very astute. I’d no idea she was unaware of what transpired.”

“I’m so sorry, Mistress! I had no idea…” Mila Rose began earnestly enough, before Apache leaned across the table and snapped at her fellow fraccion, cutting the budding apology short with a healthy dose of sarcasm.

“Well, _that_ _’_ _s_ so unusual!” she sneered, gesturing at the empty seat at the table, the one Hana had recently vacated. “Why don’t you think before you open your fat mouth?”

The third girl at the table sniffed behind her sleeve at her sisters when Mila Rose appeared to take umbrage with the ‘fat’ comment.

“You’re being childish, Apache. We didn’t know …”

“As if _you_ _’_ _re_ one to talk?” Apache rounded on Sung Sun, mismatched eyes widening, before she placed her laced fingers below her chin and raised her voice an octave or two, imitating the other in a mocking fashion. “Oh, _Hana,_ it’s _so wonderful_ to see you get along _so well_ with _the First_ , considering your _history!_ _”_

Toshiro, not wanting to return to his office with a headache whose origins he could trace to yet another pointless argument between the three, placed his chopsticks down, stacked the third bowl he’d finished on top of the other two and stood up abruptly. His actions put an immediate halt to the bickering and Harribel’s girls all looked up at him in mid-snark. Harribel, for her part, picked up her teacup and took a sip of the contents as he bowed.

“Mistress, I need to get back to the Division as well. If you don’t mind, I would like to arrange a meeting with Ise-Taichou tomorrow morning, to let her know of this incident. With your permission, I would like to find out why Hana remains in the dark regarding her father. It’s likely that, given her dual position as both a seated officer with the 3rd Division and as a member of your fraccion, she will learn of the events of the battle in a way that will… end badly.”

Harribel had listened to his words, swirling the tea in her cup a bit, as she considered them.

“I agree. Thank you, Toshiro. Mila Rose, Apache, Sung Sun, can I count on you three to keep this to yourselves, now that we’re aware of the gap in young Hana’s understanding? If the First does not want her to know the details of the battle, I do not want to incur the collective anger of Coyote Starrk and Lilinette Gingerback by informing her of them. Their goodwill is far too important to risk.”

“Oh, yes, Harribel-sama!!” the three had gasped and Toshiro had tried very hard not to let her feel his irritation at her underlings before he bowed again and made a hasty retreat back to his office. If he were the sort of man to waste money on gambling, he would have placed all of his coinage on at least one of them forgetting within a week and letting the proverbial cat out of the bag.

When he arrived home, he found the front gate open, but the door locked, which wasn’t unusual. What was unusual, once he’d crossed the threshold, was the lack of reiatsu signatures. No one was home. Toshiro frowned and while removing his haori and scarf, noticed a small, sealed envelope on the shelf where he stored the treasured garment. He gingerly picked it up and unfolded the note it contained, holding it up to a late afternoon sunbeam to read it.

_Toshiro_

_Aizen-kami requires my presence at the Palace. I_ _’_ _ve sent my fraccion to find their evening meal and entertainment elsewhere. Please dine without me, as I am unsure when I will return._

_Harribel_

He frowned. ‘Summoned to the Palace’ could have any number of connotations, both good and ill and it would do no good to worry until he’d read what she left him.

The note, much like the woman herself, only told him what she felt he needed to know. Toshiro wasn’t certain whether that was for his own protection or because there was nothing to actually be concerned about. He hoped it was the latter. Still, the timing seemed strange to him. Aizen usually called for his Espada in the morning, or a few hours after a battle, once they’d had a chance to work out their ‘urges’ with their ‘pets’. Toshiro thought he was extremely lucky in that regard; Harribel chose to partake of her girls after battles, since Mila Rose, Apache and Sung Sun were usually in a similar state and the four could work out their collective lusts with one another, rather than subjecting him to what would probably amount to a bruising orgy. He, on the other hand, typically spent his time dealing with the after battle mop-up.

That she’d sent her girls out for the evening told him nothing either. Harribel could be rewarding them for something, or she could be getting them out of the way of something ugly. He had no way of knowing. Maybe the usurper had decided on yet another pointless meeting with his top minions.

A growling, gurgling sound interrupted the brief silence in the foyer as he twirled the note between his fingers. Toshiro silently cursed his belly. As concerned as he was about Aizen calling Harribel to the Palace on short notice, he decided that worrying on an empty stomach was a waste of time, as would inhaling the amanatto tucked into his uniform. An early dinner now held far more appeal than candy.

First food, then maybe a bath. It was rare he had the house to himself and he planned on enjoy the peaceful quiet.

He sank a little deeper into the bath for a few minutes and closed his eyes. While he wasn’t a huge fan of heat in general, the hot water in which he currently steeped worked to loosen a couple of muscles in his back and the shoulder he’d strained during the last encounter with the Swarm. He ought to have someone look at it, but the 4th Division was full of patients who needed healing more than he did; going in to deal with a muscle strain seemed petty. His training over the years dictated that he simply accept aches and pains as occupational hazards. It also didn’t hurt that the elaborate sunken bath was deep enough and large enough for him to submerge himself if necessary.

The house that Harribel had chosen after the war wasn’t overly large or ornate, at least from the outside. The former owners chose to sink their extra money into the place by spending it on the pond and the sitting area out back as well as the generously appointed, heated and luxuriously tiled bathing chamber. His private room had a small adjoining bath with a shower and he used it most of the time. However, with the promise of a fraccion-free evening, a newly full stomach and some peace and quiet, he’d decided to risk it and indulge in a long, proper soak and a chat with his Zanpakuto. Toshiro had wrapped Hyorinmaru in a dry towel, to protect the blade from the steam and now rested one hand on the terry-cloth packet while they communed in the glacial confines of his inner world.

He, at least, saw the irony of mentally gasping in the frigid air of his mind’s interior while his body soaked in a bath heated to just below boiling. He could also sum up his Zanpakuto’s mood in one word: surly.

_‘_ _It_ _’_ _s far too warm for my liking. You should numb that strain with ice._ _’_

_‘_ _I already did that, more than once. If it isn_ _’_ _t better in two days, I_ _’_ _ll have someone see to it._ _’_

_‘_ _The Swarm will come again in that time. You might have a new set of injuries then._ _’_

_‘_ _If I do, it will be because I didn_ _’_ _t move fast enough_ _…’_

_‘…_ _or it_ _’_ _s because you put yourself at risk for the one that holds you captive, like last time._ _’_

Ah, here was the _real_ reason behind Hyorinmaru’s irritability the past few days. Toshiro let out a long sigh and prepared for the frosty-mannered dragon to have at him.

_‘_ _I was wondering when you were going to say something about that._ _’_

_‘_ _You grow too used to the chains that keep you bound. We were meant to fly with the storms, not bob on the waves, tethered by an anchor._ _’_

Toshiro gave his weapon a slightly derisive snort and ran his wet fingers though his slicked-back, wet hair.

_‘_ _Don_ _’_ _t tell me you dislike having the opportunity to freeze the opponents that she traps for us._ _’_

_‘_ _Boy, you use the word_ _‘_ _opportunity_ _’_ _too blithely. The opportunity for freedom, for escape was there and you kicked it away!_ _’_

_‘_ _No, I shoved it away. Correction, we froze it, then kicked it and shattered it so that it fell to the ground. Acid is a terrible way to die. All I lost was the sole of my sandal when it made contact._ _’_

_‘_ _Pulling her out of the way in the first place earned you that strain._ _’_

Well, that was true, Toshiro thought and he stretched the muscles gingerly in the hot water. One of the beetles on the ground had shot a wide stream of greenish-gray acid at Harribel while her back was turned. They’d been busy turning roughly ten locusts into ground-bound chunks of ice. Had he turned on his heel in midair any later than he did, he might not have had the precious few moments he needed to stretch his arm out, clamp his hand around Harribel’s upper arm and roughly yank her against him. It took only seconds for him to react with Hyorinmaru’s power and freeze not only the stream itself, but the head of the beetle that spewed the stuff. Pivoting on one leg and using Harribel as a counterweight to the kick, he’d destroyed it, the icy chunks plummeting down to disappear in the wintery underbrush.

The whole thing had lasted less than the space of a few heartbeats, and they’d hung there together for a few more, Harribel wide-eyed, as he’d swiftly finished the manoeuvre. He realized two things in the aftermath. First, more than a few distracting parts of her anatomy were flush up against him, one arm from each of them wrapped around the other’s waist to keep their balance. The second was that the little acid it had met when he’d broken the frozen stream was rapidly eating the sole of his sandal. He’d reached down and quickly stripped both sandal and tabi away. She’d stared at him with those eyes of hers, stunned by what he’d done before he stood back and let her go.

Then it was right back into the fray, the incident behind them as they’d worked their way through more of the enemy lines. Toshiro fought the rest of the battle, thankfully conducted as an aerial defence, with only one foot shod. She’d said nothing to him afterward and he didn’t bring it up, but Toshiro knew that Hyorinmaru would have a few unpleasant things to say to him.

_‘_ _You have a point. Nevertheless, you know that her Claim isn_ _’_ _t the only thing keeping me here. Aizen will take out every Shinigami in my Division, including Hana, if I cut and run and you know it. He won_ _’_ _t care that it will further destabilize the Realms, as long as he appears to be in control of Soul Society. He holds all of the Taichou by the same leash. I can only imagine what he used to threaten Unohana-Taichou to get her marry him and share his bed every night._ _’_

_‘_ _Are you telling me that you play the obedient lap dog for a higher purpose?_ _’_

That was uncalled for, in his opinion, but he understood where Hyorinmaru was going with his reasoning. The young man countered with a line of logic based on his observations over the years.

_‘_ _Aizen set up the most powerful of us to have to rely on our captors for protection from his laws. Either we submit to a Claim, by force or by our own choice, or Aizen_ _’_ _s threats hold us hostage. There_ _’_ _s no way out of the Soul Society for any of us right now. If she_ _’_ _d been injured or killed, we would have been free for only a short while. Szayel guards every Senkaimon from his domain. How far do you really think we could have gotten without a reliable way to the Living World?_ _’_

When the great ice dragon remained silent, chewing on that bit of information, Toshiro decided to follow it up with a little honesty. It was hard not to be truthful when one’s inner world consisted of slabs of ice that could reflect any hint of duplicity or self-delusion.

_‘_ _Perhaps I owe her for not killing us when she had the chance, during the War. She says that she fought all-out against me_ _…_ _but I suspect that was a lie. She wants me for other reasons._ _’_

_‘Your ego has increased in size as well. I think I liked you better when you were younger and you didn’t think with your gonads as often.’_

Toshiro conceded that maturity came with a few unanticipated, if enjoyable, side effects. At least, even if _he_ hadn’t entirely anticipated them, Toshiro felt it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that _Harribel_ had predicted and engineered their current arrangement after the first few minutes of swordplay.

_‘_ _You forget, Hyorinmaru, the control we_ _’_ _ve gained in the last five years. She saw our potential long before we did. I_ _’_ _ve matched it against those chains you so despise for the last fifteen years and in our efforts to overcome them, we_ _’_ _ve grown stronger._ _’_

Hyorinmaru gave him a guttural, disgusted grumble, enough to vibrate the ice around the dragon.

_‘_ _Yes, you_ _’_ _ll make a fine stud animal_ _…_ _or a drone, trained by the workers to please the queen. What happens when that man-eater gets what she wants from you? What purpose will she have for you then?_ _’_

Toshiro opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling as he floated back up from his frosty, inner world. Five years ago he’d nearly slaughtered her fraccion for ruining the last pieces he’d salvaged of his old life and instead of punishing him for it, his mistress reacted by letting him in on her long-term plans. Then, for the first time, she’d taken him to bed without the benefit of an audience, refreshed her Claim on his person and abruptly changed his status within the household. All three of these things had duly ‘blown his mind’ as they said in the Living World.

At least, within the confines of these walls, he was no longer strictly a ‘pet.’ The girls didn’t exactly accede to him, but after they’d thawed out, their behaviour in private changed dramatically. They’d also stopped groping him at those moronic parties that Aizen threw on occasion and now acted as the servants they claimed to be. Harribel allowed him to socialize away from her side with Karin, Nanao and Ukitake, on the pretext of discussing Division business, though she chose to simply sit, drink her tea and observe the room.

It didn’t escape him, as he was sure that it hadn’t escaped her or Aizen for that matter, that there were a few, informal coalitions forming, centered around the combined household formed by the First and the Sixth, with the Seventh’s household swept up into it by virtue of Grimmjow’s second active Claim. The households of the Fourth and to a much lesser extent, the Fifth moved like satellites around it thanks to Orihime and Tatsuki and their ties to the other lone human, Karin. In contrast, the households of the Third, the Second and the Tenth remained islands unto themselves, those within them isolated.  
  


In a Soul Society governed by a psychopath, Toshiro knew that ‘isolated’ equalled ‘vulnerable.’ It also didn’t escape him that most of the members of that informal stronghold were the parents or guardians of the hybrid children born to the captives and their ‘owners’. Consciously or unconsciously, those Espada with something to lose were circling the wagons and if he’d seen it, he had no doubt that Harribel was aware of it as well.

He’d wondered why his mistress agreed to help Ajuga and Hana so readily and the latest social configurations amongst Aizen’s elite, he believed, held the answer. The most utilitarian explanation was usually the correct one, in his experience. If Toshiro had been in Harribel’s position, he wouldn’t have hesitated to forge an alliance with Starrk’s motley household either. The only question rolling around in his head at present was whether her motives for doing so were what he thought they were.

If so, they needed to have a chat about more than just the problem they’d encountered today with Hana.

His mind wandered to other things, like the bag of sweets he’d left on the small table in his room and the book that Hana-chan had handed him today, a loan from Ukitake’s substantial Estate library. The moon would be full tonight, the night crisp and cold, he had a small supply of candy and he could probably talk himself into making a private moon viewing for himself on the back porch. There ought to be enough moonlight to read Basho’s collective works and enjoy some tea while he was at it. Closing his eyes again, Toshiro allowed himself the luxury of looking forward to a peaceful evening of poetry and solitude.

Then he heard the vibration of the heavy, cedar door sliding open and Harribel’s unmistakable footfalls as she approached the sunken bath and the young man in it.

_Ah well_ _…_ _what is it they say about the best-laid plans?_ he wondered.

“You’ve returned.”

He said this without opening his eyes. From where the sound of her steps stopped, he guessed that she was next to one of two carved cedar benches along the wall. Then he heard the whisper of cloth as she began removing her uniform and boots.

“Yes. The meeting was shorter than I originally anticipated. I trust you’ve eaten already?”

“Yes. I found the meal left for me in the kitchen. Thank you.”

She made a noise of acknowledgement before he heard the shower engage, which let him know that any fears he had about her sudden summons to wait on Aizen yet again hadn’t resulted in any harm to her. Cracking one eye open, he saw that she’d stripped out of her hakama, obi and her scandalously cropped jacket. She’d tucked her black boots neatly away under the bench. The view of her backside, her caramel-coloured curves dripping with hot water, soap suds, blond hair and braids water-darkened to a bronze color turned his thoughts from tea and moon viewings to other, less cerebral pastimes.

Hyorinmaru was probably onto something about his libido. However, it was hard _not_ to think with things other than his brain when confronted by such a sight. Toshiro thought that, having dealt with Matsumoto Rangiku as a Fukutaichou for all those years, he would have developed either an earlier appreciation for Harribel’s body type or a complete immunity to its charms. That neither had occurred sometimes puzzled him, but if he and Hyorinmaru had to be confined in order to keep going, in the hope that Aizen would one day make one mistake too many and lose his throne and his life, he could think of far worse captors.

That was another reason, he told himself, that he’d pulled her away during the fight. His other potential Claimers appealed far less to him than remaining where he was.

She turned around briefly, met his gaze and Toshiro liked to think he was past the stage in their relationship where her nudity could embarrass him. He’d seen all four of the women he lived with at one point or another and in enough erotic configurations to cause some permanent nosebleeds in the barracks if published in a pin-up calendar format. Still, he preferred to think that the pink stain across his cheeks was the result of the hot water and the steam. The Claim would make any desire on his part known to her in a heartbeat anyway. There was little use in pretending disinterest and acting deliberately coy wasn’t his style.

When she’d finished the cleansing part of the bath, wringing the last of the soap and the conditioner from her hair, she turned off the water and casually padded over to the spot where she’d laid her clothing. Harribel picked up Tiburon, pulled her weapon from the sheath and uttered the command for her Resurrección’s release.

Toshiro was very glad that he’d wrapped Hyorinmaru in a thick towel and for the fact that whoever built the bathing chamber had made it sturdy. The sheer amount of power and the water that materialized while shifting her form would have blown down his grandmother’s old place and left nothing but the foundation. Which, he suspected, was why she’d come to him that night in her released state, ready to Claim him rather than risking the roof coming down on their heads. Harribel carefully placed the changed blade back on the bench and the only sound was the slightly wet ‘splish-splash’ of her bare feet on the tiles as she walked towards the steps leading into the sunken tub.

_So, it_ _’_ _s to be that sort of bath_ , he thought with a mixture of anticipation and reflection, and sat up properly on the submerged stone bench. _I_ _’_ _d wondered how long it would last this time._

A little over six months had gone by since the last time she’d Claimed him and with the renewed Swarm invasions, he hadn’t paid much attention to the waning power that girdled his. In the last five years, her Claims had gone from lasting nearly a year, to barely stretching for half that time. She always Claimed him with her released form. If she’d merely wanted pleasure from him, or her girls, she’d have kept her sealed state and her half-mask in place.

He waited until she’d immersed herself, the bones of her short skirt disappearing beneath the water and the long, pale appendages that fell from what remained of the mask across her shoulders trailing behind her like true fins.

“What did he want with you, Tia?”

One of her golden eyebrows went up at the question as she slowly approached, her hands and fingers leaving a rippling wake as she ran them just below the surface of the eight-foot square bath. Toshiro, now only chest-high in the hot water, spread both of his arms out to his sides along the edge of the tub, never taking his eyes off of her as she drew closer. The fact he ventured the question at all probably said more about what had changed between them over the last five years than anything else. The rest of Soul Society saw a dutiful, obedient, well-trained ‘pet’ in Hitsugaya Toshiro. He even deferred to her before her girls, but when it was just the two of them, she allowed him to use her first name and to talk to her without the formality their official positions in Aizen’s Seireitei demanded.

“Aizen-Kami wanted to switch up the patrol zones he’s assigned to each of the Espada. Starrk has taken Barragan’s territory this evening, as part of his ‘punishment’ for Lilynette’s absence from the regular patrols, since it’s denser and mostly woodland. It will require him to remain on full alert, something I’ve no doubt that the First will consider a nuisance. I have the new territory assignments, as well as the changes to our ‘stand-by’ days, if you’d like to look at them later.”

Harribel sounded just a tad put out by this and that piqued his curiosity.

“Any idea why he changed things?”

She stood before him and he had an excellent view of the lower curve of her breasts, her darkened skin under-lit by the webbed reflection of the light hitting the waves she’d created while walking through the bathwater. His hand must have brushed the exposed tip of Hyorinmaru’s saya, because the ice dragon’s low-pitched voice snaked up to him from his resting place.

_‘_ _You should just admit that you remain shackled to this predator out of choice._ _’_

_‘_ _Doing so is strategic. It_ _’_ _s best to ride out a storm above the waves, Hyorinmaru, for as long as I can and for as long as I must. I won_ _’_ _t turn down what benefits come with doing so._ _’_

The dragons’ parting words were on the scornful side.

_‘_ _Waves you say? I fear that these waves, this undertow will drag you or rather, us, down with them, and worse, you_ _’_ _ll allow for your own drowning. You would be wise to consider my warning before she swamps you._ _’_

He moved his hand away from his Zanpakuto, cutting off their private argument before he ended up having to explain it to her. Instead, he shoved the whole bundle, towel, sword and all, away and tilted his head back to look up at his ‘mistress’ through hooded eyes as she spoke.

“I’ve found it prudent not to ask those kinds of questions, especially of late. He does what he does for his own reasons and we Espada obey, as we have since he elevated us.”

Toshiro frowned a little at her lacklustre answer, but he hadn’t exactly expected much in the way of details. There were no memos from the First Division regarding a change-up as of the time he left the office, but if this were one of Aizen’s spur-of-the-moment decisions, a packet would probably cross his desk tomorrow. If he were lucky, he’d be able to coordinate any disruptions to the schedule ‘Kami’ might cause with Nanao, which reminded him…

“I’ve a meeting with Ise-Taichou tomorrow afternoon at around three. I believe Hana has evening patrol for the next few nights, so there’s little chance of her walking in on our conversation. I presume that you’d like to sit in on this?”

Harribel raised her left hand out of the bath, idly drawing a spiralling helix of water up with it as she twirled her fingers higher in the air before she let it fall back with a splash. Her eyes followed it up and down, as if contemplating the shape of the liquid before it rose beneath her fingers again, the water a little better formed than the first attempt. After fifteen years, he thought he could read her mannerisms and despite her assurances, she seemed… hesitant to him, even while standing in the middle of her element.

“I would like that, if only to avoid any mishaps.”

Trepidation wasn’t something he normally saw in her no matter how well she tried to hide it beneath her usually calm exterior. He wondered if she occasionally forgot that she was missing the lower half of her mask in this form, and that she couldn’t conceal her thoughts as easily without her high collar, especially when her lips parted and her mouth bent just so.

“Is the First’s goodwill that important to you then?”

He echoed the words she’d spoken earlier in the day, his voice going up a bit at the end. She gave him another one of those inscrutable gazes before moving to sit astride his lap. Coherent thought abruptly fled as she knelt on the stone bench, her inner calves flush with his outer thighs and the majority of the bones that made up her skirt sinking around her hips. Harribel’s fingers, starting with a surprisingly light touch at his collarbone, skimmed down his chest, over the defined muscles in his abdomen. They dipped below the waterline and carefully moved the remainder of the thin, blade-shaped bones out of the way, before they could damage parts of his anatomy that he knew the both of them might want to keep in working order for the next, say, fifteen minutes.

“Better his goodwill than his scorn” she replied quietly, her voice pitched low and tinged with a slight hint of doubt…or was it concern?

Toshiro nodded and his arms moved so that she could lean back against the hands he clasped just below the spot where her ribcage joined up with her backbone. When she’d finished dealing with the obstacle her Resurrección’s skirt represented, her fingers stayed where they were to slide along his lower belly. This did nothing for his focus, but with a little effort, he managed to return most of his attention to the discussion.

“It’s more than that, isn’t it?”

The fingers making a hash of his self-control paused.

“Perhaps,” she said slowly, eyes averted.

“What is it, Tia? Something’s troubling you, and it isn’t what happened at lunch.”

If there was any insistence behind his words, he mitigated it by gently easing his hands apart and sinking them into the tension he knew she held along her spine. Harribel gasped and placed her palms on his shoulders, her fingers playing with the soaked strands of silvery-white hair that clung there. She leaned back, and her eyes closed as he felt a few knots in her muscles give way. Toshiro might not be able to breach her Hierro, but he did know the exact spots on her back to press to earn a few sighs of relief and her gratitude for mitigating some aches.

“You didn’t seem very happy with what Sung Sun had to say.”

One of his pale eyebrows went up.

“About the three bowls of lunch? You can inform her I officially burned through them as of four in the afternoon. I’m apparently a growing boy and need my energy,” he stated with a slight smirk and pressed his hips upwards, his feet braced on the bottom of the tub. Harribel’s eyes went wide as he presented her with the physical results her little display under the shower and her fingers wrought on him, his length pushing up against her exposed core.

His hands moved down and dug into another knot, just above her tailbone. Toshiro watched, fascinated, as her flushed lips parted with a gasp and she had to flounder around for both a response and her poise.

“Not that. In the park.”

Frowning, Toshiro tried to recall what she was talking about, sorting through his recent memories. Then he remembered his chance meet-up with Abarai and his charge and he inwardly groaned as he harked back to his near-involuntary reaction to Sung Sun’s speculation and the resulting conversation about what their mistress’s child might look like. He hadn’t clamped down on his shock quickly enough, evidently. Vindula _was_ a pretty thing, delicate, fairy-like and only a blind man would miss the fact that she had Abarai and his extensive tattoo collection twisted around her pinkie. By the time they’d parted ways with Harribel and her fraccion, he thought Mila Rose, Sung Sun and Apache were probably right there with the redhead when it came to the child. Nevertheless, expressing admiration for an adorable little girl was very different from flinging himself whole-heartedly into the fray of parenthood.

“Few men are ever entirely ready to be told that they’re going to be fathers. Or that someone is contemplating the choice for them.”

He kept working on the knots in her back, as much as her extensive mask would allow. In this form, he was unable to get to her shoulders. In her normal form, a kiss and her ability to fill him with the vast quantities of reiatsu necessary to keep his Claim intact were impossible, though he didn’t have to deal with her skirt when it came to satisfying the both of them on the nights she chose to come to him instead of her girls. His occasional frustration with the various obstacles her Arrancar mask presented at times was just one more thing he’d learned to deal with over the last half-decade when it came to the enigma sitting in his lap.

“Before the latest invasions, with the Defence Net in place, I thought there might finally be enough peace to undertake something like this, now that you’ve…”

“…come into enough power?” he finished and drew her closer by a few inches, so that he could feel something much warmer than the bathwater against his rapidly stiffening cock.

Her mouth opened a little wider and Toshiro watched the tip of her tongue dart out to catch a stray drop of water on her upper lip, the gesture nervous. Now he knew something was wrong. She was _never_ nervous, never displayed apprehension about anything anyone tossed at her, be it by Aizen, her fellow Espada or the enemy insect horde.

“Among other things,” she murmured. “Then, during the last battle…”

_So that_ _’_ _s it_ , he realized.

Harribel’s words trailed off and she let her eyes dart away from his again. If he didn’t know any better, he would have said that she seemed hesitant to bring up what they hadn’t talked of since the last time the Swarm had thrown themselves against the Seireitei’s collective defenders. Toshiro’s hands stopped and he carefully let them slide down, beneath the water and underneath her skirt to cup her bare bottom.

“You could have let me be killed. You saw it coming. I did not.”

The acknowledgement of her own vulnerability might have been part of her reticence about talking of it, but to Toshiro, it sounded as if she was both anxious and a little curious about what _he_ might say about the incident.

_This is new. She wouldn_ _’_ _t have given a damn about it five years ago._

“True. I had this conversation with someone else today. He made the same observation.”

The woman above him graced him with a thoroughly confused look, until he made a gesture with his head to the towel behind him and the sword within it,

“Why didn’t you take the chance to escape?”

He chose not to answer her question right away. Instead, he let his fingers fan out from their place on her rump. Toshiro lifted her a little with the aid of the water around them and slid all ten back towards his body until at least six of them found what they were looking for. Her breath hitched as he took his time tracing her folds, moving them slowly up until he found his second objective, circling it with the lightest of touches. The reward was to watch a faint red stain creep across her cheeks and under the dark blue marks on either side of her face. Her fingers dug into his shoulders.

“Where would I go?” he replied in what he hoped was a reasoned tone of voice, meeting her heavy-lidded eyes. “Who would I sacrifice to Aizen if I did so? My Division would be on the chopping block, at the very least… among other things.”

Toshiro tossed her own, somewhat cryptic words back at her, while he teased her flesh.

“That’s… not exactly… what I meant…” she panted, the pauses enough evidence of just how unsettled she really was, whether about his reaction to Sung Sun’s speculation or because of the incident during the fight with the Swarm he still wasn’t certain. He couldn’t lie to her and his emotions were an open book if she so chose, so perhaps a series of carefully worded truths and admissions were what she needed, or maybe wanted to hear.

_Well,_ he thought, figuring his Zanpakuto could flay him later for it, ‘ _nothing ventured, nothing gained._

“It’s entirely possible that I didn’t want you to die, Tia. I’ve become… accustomed to our talks. I’ve grown appreciative of your perspective, since it seems to be the lone voice of sanity when it comes to your peers. You approach things with both reason and intelligence. There aren’t enough of those two qualities on _this_ side of the Living World at present. It would be a shame to lose any more of either, because we can’t spare any these days.”

Maybe she had expected him to dissemble, or at least, toss off a less blunt explanation for his actions. If she felt like rooting around in his psyche for something deeper, she could do so. It wasn’t as if he could stop her. The finger delicately circling the small, swollen bundle of nerves at the apex of her sex bore down as he increased the pressure on it and her hands tightened into fists.

He’d reduced her breathing to a series of pants, her green-blue eyes glazing over. At some point, Toshiro thought he might have stepped over some line with her, challenged her authority, but so far, with his emotions matching his words, she’d shown no sign of wanting him to stop talking or touching.

“You chose me, Tia Harribel, and you’ve been one up on me for a very long time as far as your plans for ‘us’ go…” he remarked in a low voice, leaving off his left hand’s actions to lift it, dripping from the bathwater to skim the skin at the back of her neck. Pulling her shoulders gently downward while sitting up straighter so that his mouth was close to her ear, he let her hear the truthfulness that laced his next words.

“Is it such a shock to you that I might come to reciprocate your regard someday, that I might also find something worthwhile in this… union in which we find ourselves? Something I didn’t want to see vanish in an acid spray?”

It probably wasn’t the most romantic thing he could have come up with, but neither of them were the sort of people to dress up things between them with useless ornament. Letting it speak for itself, or perhaps just keeping things simple seemed smarter.

“Maybe, Tia, I did so because I wanted to.”

He felt the slightest of tugs on his Claim, enough to get him to turn his head to the side. Long, tanned arms wrapped around his shoulders as she caught his mouth up in a suddenly fervent kiss and ran her hands through his wet, slicked-back hair. Her full breasts pressed between them, the ever-present portion of her mask that barely covered them and kept them in defiance of the laws of gravity pushing into his chest. While not entirely comfortable, he could live with it in exchange for the passionate battle going on between their tongues. The fingers he’d used to tease her entrance sank into her to the second knuckle and he curled them, swallowing the small, surprisingly needy sound she made. Her reiatsu curled around his ankles, part energy and part water current, working its way up his limbs to surround the two of them, at the same time he felt another tentacle of it start to trickle down his throat. The trickle became a river as he abandoned his ministrations and put a hand on her hip. Toshiro carefully positioned her and himself, letting out a long groan as her body slowly enveloped his shaft.

She seemed to want to set the pace this time, so he concentrated on the pleasure that accompanied her reiatsu, feeling it working its way along every strand of nerves he had. Each time her legs flexed he found himself repeatedly re-enclosed in her blissfully tight, velvety channel. Toshiro once again placed both hands on her lower back, but instead of hunting for tension, his feet sought purchase on the tub’s bottom, enough to give him some leverage to meet her halfway. He drank in both her reiatsu and her moans as the head of his shaft rubbed a spot inside of her that she very much liked.

More and more of her energy filled him and he wondered sometimes if the physical transformation he’d undergone in the last five years wasn’t due to the need for a vessel large enough to contain her raw power and his own. He already knew that she’d had to use more and more of it to accomplish her Claim and that doing so left her far more drained than it did ten, or even five years ago.

“Tosh… Toshiro… I’m…” he heard her breathe with kiss-swollen lips against and into his mouth, their tongues saturated with the taste of one another and the power she was busy pouring down his throat. He felt almost glutted, heavy with it. The coiling, tension at the base of his spine, the near-whirlpool around their bodies, stirred up by Harribel’s reiatsu, the friction he could feel as he thrust upwards into her clasping, slick heat told him that it wouldn’t be long now, for either of them. His eyes drifted open, only to find her looking at him with the same, lust soaked expression he knew was probably plastered across his own face.

_No,_ he admitted, probably to Hyorinmaru’s everlasting chagrin _, I didn_ _’_ _t want to lose this._

The blonde in which he was buried whispered his name in a way that he’d never heard before and it was enough to make him find the willpower to get to his feet, holding her to him and forcing her to cling to his shoulders or fall back into the bath. Startled, she pulled away, one hand gripping his bicep and the other tangled in his wet locks. His hands moved beneath the slatted bones of her skirt to dig into her ass and marginally lift her, only to have her slide back down his shaft, forcing himself up and into her as far as he could reach. His mouth, momentarily free, wandered across the wet, cinnamon-colored flesh of her breasts, lapping at the thin rivulets of water snaking over her skin, teeth scraping along bone fragments.

_Better than the amanatto I bought today and far more satisfying_ _…_

The hand in his hair yanked his head back, not terribly harshly but with enough strength to force him to abandon what he was doing with his tongue. Another thrust of his hips made those fingers of hers tremble and the long legs wrapped around his waist shiver as he kept at it. His turquoise eyes locked on those of the woman that referred to herself as his mistress. Maybe it was an apt title, as he brimmed, almost overflowed, with her reiatsu. Harribel leaned forward to capture his mouth, grinding down on him while pulling her power back to herself and with that, he knew he was done for. Something within him splintered along unseen fault lines as her reiatsu receded, bearing it away like a chunk of river ice wrenched free by the spring runoff. Toshiro drank in her sharp cry and her mouth sealed over his, as she abruptly came, her inner walls rhythmically pulsing and contracting around him. He made a strangling noise in his throat in response, following her over the edge.

The coil of tension gathered in his loins snapped and it was all he could do not to dunk the both of them as his legs began to shake too much to remain standing. Holding her to him in what felt like a death-grip, he sank back down in the middle of the bath, his mind filled with white static as he filled her in turn, gritting his teeth and trying not to do anything as undignified as screaming as he did so. She left a portion of her gold-tinged power behind, her Claim renewed and Toshiro became aware of it settling around him as he tried to catch his breath.

The cost to do so was high, however. Harribel fell bonelessly against him and Toshiro dragged the two of them over to the tiled steps, collapsing in a heap upon them as he pulled her up next to him, curling around her.

“Tia…” he breathed against the back of her ear, out of breath and exhausted from the Claiming ritual.

“That was… more than I expected.”

Her fatigued assessment, delivered in that sultry voice of hers, the one that made him think she’d spent the evening drinking sake in a smoke-filled room, put a slight smile on his face. For a man that didn’t smile often, Hitsugaya Toshiro decided that he agreed with it. Snaking a hand to rest on her lower belly, fingers lightly stroking the skin below her navel and above the beginnings of her skirt, he inched as close as the mask covering her shoulders would allow.

“Is this enough of an answer for you?” he inquired.

When her breathing returned to something resembling normal, she covered his hand on her abdomen with her own. He could still feel a few random muscle twitches that told him she hadn’t quite recovered from her orgasm yet. Something entirely too primitive for his tastes chortled gleefully in the back of his mind at this and he stuffed it down before she could take it the wrong way.

“Somewhat,” she replied wearily. “Now that we’re better matched, I will need protection at some point.”

His body and his fingers went still and he fought down the sudden urge to bristle instinctively at the implication that he and Hyorinmaru wouldn’t be enough to put down an unruly Numeros or two, or twenty. Toshiro kicked this into the same corner to which he’d banished his earlier Neanderthal-like reaction and waited for his rational side to reappear.

“From the others?”

Her fingers tightened around his and she shook her head, blonde strands sending a few stray water droplets to land where they would.

“From the whims of Kami-sama.”

Now his eyes grew saucer-big and he froze. Such words, uttered anywhere else, could earn her and those beneath her a punishment the likes of which involved lost limbs. The statement was borderline treason and Toshiro knew it. She probably felt his surprise, because she leaned back against him, the water lapping at their waists.

“Aizen will not remain enamoured of those he toys with forever and will seek new ones in time. I saw it often enough with Barragan, this need for ‘variety’ in one’s playthings. I wish to put as many layers as I can between his desires and those I consider mine. I do not doubt your force of will or your strength, little dragon, but as an Espada, Starrk and Lilynette are unrivalled. If I must, for the time that I’m weakened with our cub, I will ask for the First’s protection.”

The resolution in her voice made him think she’d been considering this move for a while. While it irritated him, he understood it in tactical terms. Toshiro was also gratified that he’d guessed right regarding a few of her underlying motives for accepting Hana.

“So when Grimmjow asked you to take the girls under your wing…”

Harribel laughed softly and then leaned a little more heavily against the steps and him.

“It was fortuitous, though I would have done what Grimmjow asked for his daughter anyway. She could not remain ignorant of what it means to be a female Arrancar for long without incident.”

He nodded. Ajuga was, in his opinion, a nice, if extremely reckless young girl with very little idea of the sort of trouble that might lie in wait for her in her eagerness to ‘help.’ Then again, he’d known Karin as a girl and she’d had many of the same tendencies at that age, like running towards a fight rather than away from it, an inherited Kurosaki trait, even if he knew better than to bring that up.

“Would Starrk and Lilynette be able to stand against him?”

He got the part about the two of them merging to become a monstrously powerful whole. He’d seen it once, the sky full of endless, exploding Ceros and he didn’t care to see that kind of carnage again, but against Aizen’s nearly limitless reiatsu and his reality-bending Zanpakuto… well, he had a few doubts as to whether or not The First Espada would be able to take on Aizen for long.

She must have felt his concern, because he didn’t have to wait long for an explanation.

“Those who came before me spoke of the fact that when Aizen went to collect the strongest Vasto Lordes he could find, after overthrowing and subjugating Barragan, he discovered Starrk and Lilynette amid a mountain of bones and corpses. Evidently, all that Aizen needed to do was to hand them uniforms and offer them a bath. They were already Arrancar, and had achieved this status on their own.”

That was certainly news to him. He could see why she would contemplate aligning herself and her girls with Starrk and Lilinette as a kind of insurance policy. Oddly enough, it didn’t seem like the Third’s usual policy to put that kind of trust in any of the male Espada that outranked her. Then again, of the three, Starrk and Lilinette seemed the most mentally balanced, despite their affliction with terminal cases of narcolepsy and perpetual grouchiness, respectively.

“Then that leaves only one topic left. Why try for a child now, with the Net fallen and the Swarm coming at us every other day? You said a pregnancy would weaken you. Is that wise?”

Harribel turned towards him, now reclining on her back, her lower half immersed in the bath and her back arched against the edge of the step up from the one she sat on. The overhead, Kido-powered lanterns had come on, once the sunset-spawned light leaking in through the windows had faded to an inky-dark purple, studded with small, bright pinpoints of light. The golden glow from above made her eyes seem greener than they were in normal daylight, more possessive and certainly hungrier.

She reached up and fingered a few of the longer strands of his hair. It hung just below his shoulders, with one hard-to-manage strand perpetually hanging over his left eye. For some reason, every time he considered having a barber whack it back into some semblance of order, circumstances required that he put the haircut on hold. If this kept up, he’d soon resemble Ukitake-san, minus the eye patch and the bag of sweets.

“The last skirmish with the Swarm served to remind me that we’ve no guarantees in this conflict.”

_Carpe Diem it is then_ , he thought. Either of them could be one less-than-successful skirmish with the Swarm away from oblivion, but that was simply part of being a soldier. She was correct in that grabbing for what they could have now was a safer bet than not.

Toshiro still couldn’t picture himself as a father. It didn’t help that most of the so-called ‘role-models’ he’d had as far as child rearing went were questionable at best. As much as he’d loved his grandmother, she was long gone and the Matsumoto he remembered from her days as a Fukutaichou wouldn’t bring home any ‘parent-of-the-year’ awards. Ukitake, as much as he liked and respected the man, fell into the ‘good-time uncle’ category, with his penchant for handing out sweets without regard for hyperactivity, proper nutrition or cavities. Reigning in his own sweet tooth in favour of being a good example to a child held little appeal, though he knew it was a parental requirement. The only other people that came to mind made him question his sanity. It was a sad day when Abarai Renji and Grimmjow would stand out to Toshiro as prime examples of nurturing caregivers.

“If you have doubts, know that I think you do well with Hana-chan.”

Of course, she’d pick up on the internal argument going on in his mind. Toshiro shook his head, trying to get a handle on his warring emotions, as he tottered between abject fear and reluctant acceptance of something he probably had very little control over.

“I’m her superior officer and she understands how to obey orders. Hana’s hardly a child and I didn’t see much of her when she was smaller. I’m not sure that working well together qualifies me for fatherhood.”

Toshiro had had little enough contact with the rest of the children, other than running into Ajuga on occasion when she would visit her mother’s Division. He’d spent the majority of his life in the Gotei 13, which wasn’t the most child-friendly environment, unless one counted Yachiru and he’d seen _her_ take down grown men four times her size and age and then dance on their unconscious bodies while munching on peppermints… probably supplied by Ukitake. He made a mental note to warn Harribel about the other Taichou’s candy stash. Would a half-Arrancar child, born of two relatively powerful parents and raised with three short-fused Arrancar females as surrogate aunties be of similar temperament?

Of course, he and Harribel had a much better sense of mutual decorum, an appreciation for rationality and at least some idea of what passed for acceptable behaviour in public. Maybe they’d be lucky and any offspring would inherit at least a few of their better qualities. Toshiro also knew that Harribel didn’t exactly need his permission to conceive. As much as he hated to admit it, he needed her Claim to avoid execution as much as she needed him to contribute his genetic material to her cause. What he didn’t really understand was why she wanted this in the first place.

“I think you sell yourself short in that regard,” he heard her say and her words jogged him out of his woolgathering long enough to look down at her. Her outward appearance was as calm and self-possessed as ever and he suddenly wondered if he’d hallucinated how flustered she’d become while Claiming him earlier.

“If this is going to happen,” he said, “I guess I’d like to know why.”

She leaned back, bending one of her knees and bringing at least part of one long, dripping leg out of the water, resting her foot on the next step down. The position didn’t look comfortable, but Harribel gave him a faint smile.

“As I told you, the most recent battle reminded me that existence is often short and waiting for a perfect future might mean losing out completely. As for why…” she replied and then trailed off, biting her lip, as she appeared to try to put together an explanation that would make sense to him. After a minute or two of silence, she pressed his hand down on the spot where it rested on her lower abdomen.

“What makes me a Hollow cannot be seen, little dragon. It is a void and a reminder of the sacrifice I made for the life I carried. Such were the times in which I died. To lose one’s life this way was not an uncommon occurrence. The memories I retain are little more than shadows, fleeting glimpses of events long gone, but the yearning to hold, to protect, to be filled never went away. No amount of power I consumed before this could fill the abyss within me, nor could it ease the ache.”

She looked away, to gaze at the far wall, her sea-glass eyes slightly unfocused. She wasn’t usually this loquacious but this wasn’t something she’d ever shared with him before.

“The strong devour the weak in Hueco Mundo, or Claim them. Female Hollows are rare for a reason. We are often easy prey for the males, much as females are in the Living World, unless we are sufficiently strong, cunning, or lucky. I’d gathered those I could find to me, thinking it would be easier to protect ourselves if we did so as a group, rather than gaining power through eating and sacrificing others. I thought that method might ease the emptiness inside as well and for a while, it worked.”

The young man next to her could only sit, staring down at her in shock as she revealed her motives. Toshiro felt a strange mixture of sympathy, awfulness and, at least for him, an uncharacteristic amount of outrage as he processed this new information. Of course, there were millions of ways that humans met their physical ends, some better and some worse than others, but what she described seemed particularly cruel. He supposed that dying in the middle of the act of birthing a new life could generate enough anguish and unfulfilled desire to create a Vasto Lorde. The level of despair alone, minus a properly performed konso, would also account for the memories. At that moment, much of what appeared to drive Tia Harribel made a terrible, ironic sort of sense and it didn’t get any better as she continued.

“Then Aizen came. He promised a better future for my girls than the mindless cycle of eat-or-be-eaten. It was much better than what Barragan wanted, which was to parcel us out to his followers as prizes,” she said, spitting out the Second’s name as if it was something nasty she’d made the mistake of tasting. “If I followed him, he said, he would give me the power I needed to protect them. I wouldn’t have to devour others, wouldn’t have to sacrifice those I wanted to protect or myself, wouldn’t have to bow down to Barragan and accept that old man’s boot on my neck. He wanted to know if I’d like to see my ideals in action, if I would like my deepest desires fulfilled, that empty space made whole again.”

Toshiro was now officially appalled. To dangle something like _that_ in front of her, as a bloody _incentive_ was nothing short of horrendous manipulation. Then again, this was Aizen the puppet-master. He’d seen what the bastard had done to Hinamori. He shouldn’t be surprised at anything the bastard had done or offered to secure another powerful soldier.

She fell silent, and he could tell she was mentally somewhere else, perhaps revisiting the moment when she’d accepted that deal. Any agreement with the usurper was bound to come with some kind of caveat.

“Did taking his offer help with that void inside of you?”

It was an audacious statement to make, he realized, just after it left his mouth. Toshiro expected her to get angry, or remind him of his place at a question that sounded a little too much like a challenge to her about a past decision, but either she didn’t take it as such, or she’d felt how shocked he was about Aizen’s promises. Instead, she continued to stare off into space, her fingers lightly tracing over his.

“Not in the way I expected. We ended up going to war and both sides made sacrifices for Aizen’s ascendancy. However….”

Harribel sighed, and then looked up at him through golden lashes, her expression thoughtful.

“…his victory let me find someone who could. I believe your power can overcome this internal paradox within me, Toshiro. You’re strong enough and you’re capable enough. You also possess all of the qualities I deem necessary and desirable for the father of my child.”

He could only stare down at her as he tried to put what she’d just told him into context and attempted to keep his lower jaw where it was, rather than letting it fall into the bathwater.

What in the Hell was he supposed to say to _that_?

Maybe Hyorinmaru had been right about the whole ‘undertow’ business.

Now that he knew her underlying reasons, including the aspect of motherhood tragically thwarted, Toshiro let what she said sink in. Regarding her through wet, white bangs, he knew that he shouldn’t let what she’d told him influence him, but that was difficult to do while she lay next to him and closed her eyes, waiting for some kind of signal from him.

She had made up her mind about what she’d wanted long before he’d ever existed, if the time frame she’d hinted at was right. There were plenty of very practical reasons to go along with this. Harribel hadn’t had to order him into her bed since the day she’d told her girls they’d lost their ‘playtime’ privileges with him and she’d kept her word that whatever they did between them, including her Claims, would remain private. Toshiro didn’t want to have to give her a reason to rescind that ban. He also didn’t want to jeopardize the freedoms he did have, which were extensive compared with many of his fellow captives. While his powers weren’t yet strong enough to allow him to escape her encircling Claim at will, it might only be a matter of time before it would be up to _him_ as to whether or not he allowed her to continue to cast one.

The tie between them that a _child_ would create would be much harder to break than a Claim.

Of course, if he had wanted the ones that already existed, the ones attributable to the Claim and the other, invisible ones that had sprung up on their own to shatter, he could have let the beetle’s acid hit its intended target.

Toshiro could sit and debate with his better judgment until the Realms collapsed and find enough arguments for and against bringing another life into the dangerous mess Aizen had created of Heaven. While his willingness might be a minor consideration, at the very least she’d given him her reasons and even explained why she wanted to do so with him as opposed to the strongest candidate she could find. That mollified his ego a bit, which made reaching his ultimate decision easier.

Pulling his hand away from her belly, he decided to take a risk and instead, gingerly placed it on the step next to her far shoulder. His knee followed suit a few steps down, nudging the bones of her skirt as they floated in the bath. Her eyes opened to find him kneeling, naked, on all fours above her, water droplets from his sodden hair falling to land on her torso and running in rivulets over her skin to the tiled steps. His shadowed eyes took in her cautious expression, before the corner of his mouth quirked up.

“So…about this baby… when should we start?”

Her arms reached up in response and pulled him down against her, into a kiss that stole the breath from his lungs and the sense from his head. The next few minutes involved a tangle of limbs and tongues, despite the fatigue caused by her Claim. Toshiro swore that he was going to end up crawling to his room once this was over, or hers, whichever was closer. She parted her thighs and her hands found him at the same time that his teeth latched on to her throat. There was no way he could break the skin there, or mark it, but when his fingers stole beneath her skirt and worked their way into her channel, still slippery with his first release and her renewed excitement, she arched up and he felt the quickening of her pulse under his mouth.

“Shit… Tia…” he groaned as she smoothed her palm over the head of his re-awakened cock and ran her other hand down one hip, spreading her long, tanned legs wider in a blatant invitation.

Then, of all things, her hand stopped what it was doing, leaving him on edge.

Dazed, he pulled back as she turned her head and her eyes towards the door. The hand around his shaft poised maddeningly in mid-stroke.

It wasn’t until he heard it, a faint, feminine voice, that he realized what was wrong.

“Mistress Harribel, Hitsugaya-Taichou?”

Someone else was in the house and it wasn’t one of her Arrancar fraccion.

Toshiro took a very deep breath, then another. He fumbled about for his wits and then tried to expand his awareness enough to try to pick up on the visitor’s reiatsu. Beneath him, he could tell Harribel was doing the same thing.

It turned out to be the last person he expected at this time of night. Hana _was_ here though, and she was incredibly agitated. Why was she back in the Seireitei? She ought to be leagues away on patrol until early morning.

Then he considered some of the potential reasons she might suddenly abandon her duties and he gritted his teeth together, knowing that whatever it was probably couldn’t wait.

They both looked at one another and Harribel reluctantly let go of him. In turn, he slid his fingers from her, choking back a curse as he put a muzzle on his disappointment. The blond gave him a quick, conciliatory kiss, with just enough tongue to promise that they’d resume this at some point in the near future. He let her up and they climbed from the bath. Harribel wordlessly handed him an ‘after-bath’ yukata and pulled her own from its peg along the wall, not bothering to release Tiburon and go back to her sealed state.

When they’d made themselves presentable, Toshiro fell in behind the Espada as she sighed and made her way to where Hana’s reiatsu signature fluctuated in the foyer. Then he laid eyes on the girl and all of Toshiro’s hackles went up at the sight of her. She’d wrapped her arms around her body and she’d hunched her shoulders, as if she was overtly cold, despite the winter-weight uniform she wore. A pair of haunted, bloodshot eyes stared out at them from her too-pale face.

Oh, this was not good, he thought. He’d never seen his relaxed, competent 7th Seat in such a state. While she didn’t look physically injured, he’d seen enough of others going through the aftermath of some kind of trauma to know she was bordering on hysteria.

“Hana-chan?” he heard Harribel say quietly, reaching out one hand towards her newest fraccion.

Hana turned and bowed, sniffling all the while and in a thick voice said, “Taichou, I’m here to officially report that I cannot complete my assigned patrol route tonight. I… there was…”

She didn’t complete the sentence. A moment later, Hana burst into a series of gut-wrenching, shuddering sobs and buried her face in her hands.


	29. Tempest Tossed

Maybe coming here hadn’t been the best idea she’d ever had.

Once she reached the edge of the Seireitei, she found she couldn’t recall if the Espada or her fraccion would be home tonight, though she knew her Taichou had the evening off. In fact, she hadn’t had much more on her mind that simply getting here, giving her superior her notice and then asking Harribel why everyone she knew seemed to have withheld some very important information from her.

She hadn’t considered much beyond that and trying not to look like a snivelling child while she sought some answers. Unfortunately, she seemed to be doing a terrible job of the second.

The gate and the door had been unlocked, but she could tell both of the people that she needed to talk to were home, from briefly scanning for their reiatsu. So she’d called out and tried to wipe away the tears that kept leaking from the corners of her eyes, and tried to quell the urge to fall down and weep uncontrollably on someone else’s front rug. She knew the tremors going through her body were from the adrenaline rush and could think of no way to stop them.

Finally, she heard two pairs of feet walking towards her; the sound was muffled enough to know that the feet weren’t shod in the usual house slippers as they approached. The reason soon became apparent. Hitsugaya-Taichou looked a bit flushed and more than a little flustered and her mistress, while calmer, seemed equally concerned. Hana took in their slightly dishevelled appearances and damp hair, the informal, usually-reserved-for-after-a-bath yukata they wore, and to her horror, she realized what her arrival might have interrupted. If her face weren’t already red, it would have turned scarlet.

“Hana-chan?”

The blonde Espada had her hand out, as if to ascertain that she was physically all right, while her Taichou seemed outright alarmed, his eyes looking her up and down to see if she had any injuries.

The officer part of her psyche, the one currently holding her together, kicked her into getting the formalities out of the way before she did anything else. Hana sniffled and straightened as much as she could, then forced her explanation for abandoning her patrol past shivering lips.

“Taichou, I’m here to officially report that I cannot complete my assigned patrol route tonight. I… there was…”

Hana thought she’d be able to give a quick, business-like recounting of the entire run-in with the intruders, but suddenly her throat wouldn’t work and the words in her head became jumbled. The only sounds she could make seemed to involve sobs, one following another and soon she was bawling into her hands.

Two sets of hands fell on her.

“Kami… did someone Claim her?” she heard her Taichou hesitantly ask, his tone ghastly. On her other side, Harribel gave what sounded like a heavy sigh and she took Hana gently by the elbow.

“If they had, she wouldn’t be here. She’d be under her Claimer, and probably would be until I came to kill whoever was stupid enough to do it. This is something else. I’ll take her to the study. Would you please bring tea for the three of us?”

“I’ll go heat the water with Kido. I don’t think we’ve the time to bother with the stove,” she heard him say.

Harribel’s smooth voice addressed her and what came out was a thinly veiled order.

“Come with me, Hana-chan.”

“Taichou… my patrol…” she tried to say and the masculine voice over her other shoulder growled.

“Hang the patrol. Go on,” he snapped and seemed to put that particular topic to rest as he left for the kitchen.

She nodded, hiccupping and crying as Harribel hustled her down the hallway, around the corner and into the study. The taller woman planted Hana on the couch and closed the door behind them. She proceeded to drape the warm lap blanket, the one that usually sat folded on the arm of the sofa, around her shoulders. Something white swam into her peripheral view: a cloth handkerchief held by long, tan fingers.

“Here, Hana-chan. Use this and then begin at the beginning.”

The girl took it and tried to clean up the mess her face had become, dabbing at her swollen eyes and runny nose in an attempt to put herself back together. It didn’t help that the minute she managed to get her eyes or her nose clear, a fresh round of sobs would work its way out of her and she’d have to start all over again.

Five minutes later, she heard the door open and her Taichou entered with not only the requested teapot, but also an unopened bottle of sake, a lone sake cup and an unopened bag of marbles. He placed the tray on the low table that sat before the couch and poured three cups of tea. Then he opened the sake battle, poured a cup and placed it in front of Hana.

Pulling the chair closer, he sat forward in it, elbows on his knees and gave her an intent look while he took a sip from his teacup.

“If we’re to help you, we need to know what happened. Let’s start from the moment you left here this afternoon and work our way forward.”

“Yes, sir,” came the meek reply. Hitsugaya-Taichou made a motion towards the sake cup and she picked up the small, shallow vessel.

“Drink that. It will calm you down.”

Hana rubbed her eyes with the now-sodden handkerchief. She took a sniff of the stuff and made a face.

“I… I don’t really drink. Mother and Karin-san….”

“…aren’t here at present. You get one, two cups at most. I have it on good authority this will help.”

She gave the cup a dubious look, as if it might bite her.

“Why aren’t you having any, Taichou?”

“I never touch the stuff, but then, I’m not the one crying.”

She was too busy looking down into the clear liquid to notice Harribel’s eyebrow go up, but she did catch his shoulder shrug in response. Tossing it back, she sputtered and gasped, coughing instead of crying. Her Taichou’s eyes narrowed a bit.

“I said drink it, not inhale it!”

“Ugh! It burns!”

He gave her what might have been a ghost of a smile as he took the cup from her.

“You have no idea how happy I am to hear you say that…and it’s _supposed_ to warm you as it goes down. The second cup will be easier, just take it a bit slower.”

“It tastes terrible.”

“Glad to hear that too.”

“Sir, if you don’t drink sake, why do you have a sake bottle?”

Hitsugaya rubbed the back of his neck and winced, then picked up the small bag, which turned out to have candied azuki beans instead of marbles in it. He poured some into her other hand.

“Nostalgia, mostly, and the occasional medicinal purpose. Use those to kill the taste when you’re finished with your second cup and then have some more candy. I’m willing to bet that you didn’t have much in the way of an evening meal, did you?”

Her guilty look earned her a little grumbling on his part, but he poured her another and nudged it forward. As usual, her Taichou’s cool, business-like manner helped Hana harness her turbulent emotions, enough so that she could choke down the encore cup of courage and launch into a broken accounting of Starrk and Lilinette’s run-in with Shihoin Yoruichi and Sarugaki Hiyori. She wasn’t much of a ‘sweets’ person anymore, but the amanatto did serve to cut the nasty taste of sake and once the candies hit her stomach, the slightly unsettled feeling in her gut subsided.

She expected him to ask why she hadn’t sounded the alarm when she became aware of the intruders, or why she’d strayed from her designated patrol route in the first place. Instead, the two sat back and listened. It wasn’t until she got around to what Hiyori had screeched at her that she saw a real reaction from either of them.

Her Taichou’s face went even paler than usual.

Harribel’s eyes hardened and her mouth thinned into an unhappy line.

Their eyes, so similar in color, met and Hana could almost taste the amount of dismay that passed between them. Looking back and forth at them, the girl suddenly understood what they weren’t saying and a sick, bleak feeling crept over her. They’d both fought in the Winter War as well. Of course, they’d known about Starrk and her father.

The handkerchief was soaked at this point, but the two cups of sake her Taichou had pressed on her had done their job and she simply felt too tired to keep crying. Hana clutched the blanket a little closer to her.

“I guess everyone knew but me, huh?” she spat out bitterly. “Everyone knew that Starrk murdered my father and no one saw fit to say anything to me about it. Not my mother, not ‘take-ji, not Starrk… no one.”

Harribel poured another cup of tea for herself. Picking it up, she swirled the liquid and leaves idly, and gave her newest fraccion a regretful look.

“I would not use the word ‘murdered.’ Those who enter willingly onto a battlefield are not ‘murdered.’ They can die in the line of duty, sacrificing their lives in combat for their comrades, for a greater cause, for their leaders or for those that they wish to protect. To call it ‘murder’ is a misnomer.”

The white-haired young man pinched the bridge of his nose before trying to put a better spin on his mistress’s words.

“No one in this house thought that at your age, you remained ignorant of what happened during the Battle of False Karakura. We assumed, wrongly, that you knew of the First’s role in Kyoraku Shunsui’s death. That’s why…”

Hana groaned and scrubbed at her eyes again, hunching over, cutting him off.

“Mila Rose and Sung Sun… that’s what they meant! I… didn’t know what they were talking about.”

She pressed the heels of her hands against her eye sockets, trying to keep the sudden headache she felt looming at bay. Her face felt hot and the flush wasn’t just from the sake.

Hitsugaya-Taichou ran his fingers through his hair and murmured something that sounded suspiciously like cursing.

“I’d intended to speak with your mother tomorrow about this, to inquire why you hadn’t been told and why she’d left that information out when Harribel-sama made you her fraccion. It would seem that we were a day late in addressing the issue,’ he acknowledged ruefully.

“Why?” she whispered. “Why did they hide the fact that Starrk killed my father?”

This time it Harribel spoke, sipping on her tea.

“That, I’m afraid, I don’t know. Tell me, Hana-chan, are you upset about the fact that the First was the one to defeat your father in battle, or are you upset that they chose not to share the information with you?”

Hana stared down into her empty sake cup. Harribel’s question hung there in the air between the three of them while the girl tried to figure out how to answer it.

“I… I don’t…” she began and then fell silent. Instead, she set down the smaller cup and picked up her teacup, draining it. Her Taichou filled it the moment she set it down and gazed at her expectantly, as if waiting for a definitive response. She wasn’t sure she had one to give.

“Maybe both,” she finally said. Hana knew it was a cop-out of an answer, but the overwhelming shock of finding out she’d been sharing a house and a life with the one who had slaughtered her father in battle had been the first thing to hit her. How could they have lied to her for all of these years?

“How old are you, Hana-chan? Nearly fifteen?”

Her Taichou gave her a critical look as he said this and she found herself nodding, a habit ingrained due to her position. His expression went from critical to speculative.

“Knowing what you know now, would you have burdened the younger you with this knowledge?”

The question took her completely off-guard and her eyes went wide.

“I…”

The young man in the chair opposite her sat back, cradling his teacup against his chest while she sat stock-still. Harribel cast a sharp glance at him.

“Toshiro…” she said, lips curving downward, “…that’s not entirely fair.”

“Perhaps not, and I’m not a parent, but my gut would tell me to wait until a child in such a situation was old enough to fully comprehend what had happened.”

It was the sort of logical thing she expected her superior to say and he wasn’t exactly looking at her while he said it. Instead, he looked at Harribel.

“But, I would have had a right to know anyway,” she whispered, shaking her head. It wasn’t that she didn’t understand what her Taichou was try to get at, but that she didn’t necessarily agree with it. “He said he made a promise to protect mother and ‘take-ji.’ I can’t tell if he was lying or not. I wasn’t there during the… battle and I don’t know exactly what did or didn’t happen so I can’t tell if he… they… were just saying what they said…”

Suddenly, she sat up a little straighter as an idea came to her and she looked back at Hitsugaya-Taichou.

“You… you were there too! You fought in that battle too, right? Please, tell me what happened!” Hana pleaded.

The young man obviously did not expect the conversation to go skittering off in this direction, because he cast a quick look at Harribel, who looked equally nonplussed. They engaged in one of those exasperating, wordless conversations, conducted entirely by eye contact, before Harribel sighed.

“If you’re asking if the two of us saw the battle between your father and the First Espada in his released state, the answer is ‘not really.’ To the best of my understanding, however, the fight was four-on-two, in favour of the Yamamoto’s forces.”

Four against two?

She knew about Ukitake-san, and her father but the announcement that two others had taken on the First as well surprised her. Starrk and Lilynette had faced down _four_ opponents and _won_? Hana gaped for a few seconds and then turned to the Espada seated next to her. The blonde’s lips pursed her lips and her eyes were on the sake bottle.

“You didn’t see what happened, Harribel-sama?”

“No, I’m afraid I was… _preoccupied_ at the time.”

Hana frowned at that, until she remembered that Yamamoto’s forces would have engaged the Third and her fraccion as well.

“If I recall, _that_ fight was three-on-one. Myself and those two Vizards.”

This time, the corner of her Taichou’s mouth twitched up and Harribel gave him a very measured look, as if weighing whether or not to continue letting him speak.

“Yes, yes it was. Had it not been for Wonderweiss, I would have succumbed to Toshiro’s Hyōten Hyakkasō. It was a near thing too.”

Hana’s fingers tightened around her teacup and her mouth hung open as what her mistress said stunned her. Did that mean…? Her brown eyes darted back and forth between the two.

“You fought one another!” she gasped, putting the teacup down and outright staring now. “How?”

“We threw everything we had at one another, to be honest. If Aizen hadn’t kept that small monstrosity in reserve, in order to take out our Soutaichou, engineered specifically to overcome Ryūjin Jakka, things might have taken a different turn.”

He gave Hana a significant look while he said this, but she had the feeling that she wasn’t the one that he was addressing.

“Indeed. I’ve often looked back on that day and wondered if Aizen-Kami had not planned as well as he had to exploit the weaknesses within the Gotei 13, what the outcome might have been. Much was lost on the part of those conquered and yet, I think there were some gains as well.”

Harribel certainly wasn’t looking at Hana as she said this, and now she got the feeling she’d _definitely_ intruded on something when she’d knocked on the door. Embarrassed, she tried to hide behind her teacup, only to have her Taichou drag her back into the conversation.

“My question still stands, Hana-chan: would you have told the younger you about what had happened?”

When he put it that way, some of the white-hot anger she’d felt towards her mother, Starrk and ‘take-ji,’ as well as the other adults in the house faded. Her practical side, fortified by two cups of sake, candy, tea and a question that needed an answer, finally found enough traction to overcome the tempest going on in her head.

Unfortunately, it dragged a few things into the light of day for her to examine that forced her to think about the situation in a slightly different light.

Hadn’t she just had this kind of conversation with Diaemus about Ajuga’s Royal blood? As unhappy as she was about lying to her friend and keeping things from her, both she and the hybrid boy were in total agreement that telling her the truth would only lead to trouble. Still, would Ajuga be upset with the both of them when, or if, she discovered that they’d withheld what was undoubtedly important information?

Suddenly, things seemed a lot murkier than they had before.

“It… would depend, I think. On the person,” she replied slowly. Her Taichou snorted faintly and looked at the ceiling of the study with a sour expression.

“That’s true. There are a few idiots in my own Division I wouldn’t trust with a burned-out match, let alone important information… like the accounts, for instance. Thankfully, you aren’t one of them.”

Hana coloured at her superior’s somewhat backhanded compliment, unsure if she ought to be pleased or offended for her fellow Division members. The books _had_ been a mess when she’d started in on them and Hitsugaya-Taichou didn’t hand out praise often.

Another possibility occurred to Hana and she bit her lip, nearly bruising it.

“Do you think they were waiting, to tell me?”

The two others in the room shared another glance, Harribel turning her cup around in her long, elegant fingers.

“I don’t know that either,” the Espada replied. “That would be between you, Ise-Taichou, Ukitake-Taichou and the First. It’s unfortunate that you had to learn about it in this manner, and from such a source.”

“Ugh. Sarugaki Hiyori. That one was all mouth and spent more time trying to argue with me than doing anything useful!”

Her Taichou rubbed his forehead and sounded as if he didn’t particularly like the pig-tailed Vizard, but Harribel’s throaty chuckle cut into his irritation. Her next words brought a faint stain to the young man’s cheeks, and then Hana’s once she deciphered what her mistress meant by them.

“Hmm, perhaps I should be grateful to her. But for her incompetence, I would never have had such a lovely time this evening.”

Harribel gave her Taichou a sultry, enigmatic smile and her Taichou, in turn, silently mouthed what might have been the word ‘Tia’ as a warning back to her while his cheeks coloured. Hana’s ever-helpful practical side, bolstered by the handful of candy she’d shovelled into her mouth to hide how flustered she became, kicked her brain back on track as she thought about the bitchy little...

The intruders! She’d nearly forgotten about the fact that Starrk and Lilynette had caught them sneaking into the Soul Society, or out of it. Putting aside everything she’d learned, by telling her Taichou and her mistress about the whole encounter, she’d lost the ability to keep things a secret. Hitsugaya-Taichou would have to put down something, if only to explain why she’d fled instead of completing her patrol. Worse, she had no idea what Harribel would be required to say to Aizen, as one of his elites. She swallowed the candy quickly and took a drink of tea to wash it all down.

“Taichou, the two Escapees that… Starrk… ran into, they got away. The dark-haired one knocked Hiyori unconscious and took off with her. Starrk didn’t chase them down. He… he was busy trying to talk to me. What should I do or put in the report, Sir?”

Now there really did seem to be a silent, almost tense argument going on between the two others in the study, their turquoise gazes taken up with one another in a different sort of match of wills. Harribel certainly didn’t look happy and neither did Hitsugaya-Taichou. Hana suspected that they might be angry about different things, however. Her mistress looked a little troubled, while her Taichou seemed to have a ‘ball’s in your court now’ expression on his face when he looked at the blonde. If she didn’t know any better, she would have said that he was leaving the decision as to what to do about reporting the intruders to Harribel.

Eventually, the Espada finished her tea and tiredly set her cup down.

“Starrk and Lilynette are haphazard at best about reporting things, but I don’t know what they’ll do about something that would affect them personally. It would be best to say nothing at the moment.”

“Considering our earlier talk, we could choose to take the lead.”

Both women looked at the pale-haired man as he said this, Hana with alarm at the thought that her superior officer would actually tell her to lie and Harribel with some unreadable emotion that Hana was sure had a few more layers to it than covering for her fraccion’s error. Hitsugaya-Taichou steepled his fingers in front of him and graced them with an explanation.

“If The First says nothing about the incident, and he doesn’t make a full report, there’s no reason to involve you at all. As far as we are concerned, you stuck to your patrol route and that is that.”

“Yes, I mean, no sir. I have to check in at the end of my patrol. If I’m seen coming from the 1st District…”

“With whom,” her Taichou asked pointedly, “do you have to check in?”

Harribel’s eyes widened a little, and then they narrowed as she gave Hitsugaya-Taichou a crafty smile, apparently catching on to the rest of his unspoken plan.

“Not if I require you to report in to me first. Your duty to me supersedes your duties to your Division.”

Harribel said this offhandedly, and then put her fingers on the handle of the teapot.

“Would you like another cup, Hana-chan?”

“Ah, I… no, no thank you, Mistress Harribel.”

“Very well,” the other woman said and poured the remainder of the tea between her cup and that of her ‘pet.’ Hana reached back and stuck a stray strand of brown hair behind her ear, considering the deceptive logistics the two had managed to set up between them in the space of less than a minute.

It reminded her a little too much of the way that ‘take-ji and Starrk played shoji together, at ease with one another, to the point where conversation wasn’t actually necessary. Her Taichou and her mistress had gone from trying to kill one another in the heat of battle to giving one another meaningful looks across a dining table. The circumstances weren’t quite the same as what had happened with the First, ‘take-ji and her mother, but she simply couldn’t reconcile what she’d found out with the environment in which she’d grown up. She’d been so used to the idea of Starrk and Lilinette as members of the family that the image of them as conquering warriors, taking her mother and ‘take-ji as prizes handed out by Aizen after the dust settled made her gut wrench a little.

That view of them meant that they might have considered Hana as part of the loot.

“Mistress, would it be alright if I stayed here for the night. I won’t be any bother, I promise. I’ve already… I’ve taken up enough of your evening as it is, but I just don’t think I really want to go home right now. I need some time away, to think.”

The blond Espada nodded, unsurprised by the request.

“Of course you may stay. We’ve a spare room if you need and I’m sure the girls won’t mind if you borrow a yukata while you’re here,” she said graciously. The relief on Hana’s face must have showed, because her Taichou let out a long breath and added his two-yen’s worth.

“You’re on patrol for the next few nights. If you choose, you can stay in the 3rd Division barracks. You’re a seated officer and right now, the only thing you’re using the space allotted to you for is file storage. It might not be the quietest place to try to get some shut-eye, but you can sleep anywhere if you’re tired enough. I still plan on meeting with your mother tomorrow, if only to let her know you’re fine and that you’re working things through,” her commanding officer pointed out.

“Of course sir!”

The idea of getting away from the Estate held some real appeal. She’d opened her mouth to thank them both and instead, a massive yawn worked its way out of her. With the adrenaline gone and the two cups of sake working in tandem, she felt wrung out. Rubbing at her eyes, she took another look at the two and saw similar signs of fatigue in both her mistress and her superior and despite how tired she was, she had more than enough energy left to feel a little ashamed.

“I’ll pull out the spare futon and bedding. I’ve a few older uniforms tucked away that will probably fit you if you need a spare change of clothing for tomorrow. As an officer, you’re also allowed to ask the Quartermaster for a spare in your size if you require one, as well as any requisite accessories.”

Hana’s Taichou downed the last of his tea and got up, gathering up the teapot and cups once Harribel placed her empty cup on the tray, as well as the sake bottle and the shallow sake cup. When Hana moved to put the half-eaten bag of candied beans on the tray, he shook his head and closed her fingers around it.

“Keep it. You can snack on them tomorrow if you need, while you clear out your room in the barracks.”

With that order, he was gone. Harribel’s eyes watched him go with a slight smile playing about her lips, as if she was privately pleased or amused by something about him. Hana was sure that whatever it was, it most definitely wasn’t any of her business.

“Can… I ask you a question, Harribel-sama?”

Those turquoise eyes turned back to her and the Espada folded her hands in her lap, running the pads of her fingers over the pattern of blue waves and white crests printed onto the cotton.

“Of course. What do you want to know, Hana-chan?”

“Will Aizen-Kami… find out that Starrk let two of the Escapees get away? What if he finds out that it was because of me?”

Harribel reached over and tucked a strand of hair that Hana had missed behind her ear, giving her an understanding look.

“The First took over Barragan’s territory this evening, on short notice, because Kami-sama changed the schedule. As much as I loathe the Second, had Kami-sama not swapped their territories around, the two intruders would have encountered Barragan and Respira, rather than the head of your household. They might not have fared as well if that had happened. The ultimate responsibility, in my mind, for their escape lies in the one that deployed his warriors in a less-than-efficient manner.”

Hana sat in stunned silence, listening to what amounted to someone, finally, holding Aizen accountable for a decision. The fact that the two women had eluded capture didn’t seem to bother Harribel very much and Hana guessed that her earlier dismay had more to do with Hana’s involvement than whether or not a couple of rogue Shinigami snuck into or out of Soul Society. She didn’t exactly know what to think, since all indications prior to this pointed towards Harribel as one of Aizen’s more devoted followers. Only Ulquiorra’s loyalty seemed more devout and unshakeable.

Then again, her mistress was a lot like the water of the pond in which she seemed to enjoy spending so much time: serene and reflective, but hard to read as far as what lay beneath its surface.

Maybe Harribel’s attitude towards Aizen wasn’t quite the black-and-white case it appeared to be, and according to what she’d witnessed this evening, her Taichou wasn’t the dutiful hound that everyone, including his own subordinates, thought he was, at least behind closed doors. Both gave her something to ponder, especially as she’d accepted a place within Harribel’s household. Knowing where the people within it stood suddenly seemed like a very good idea.

“I think it might be wise, however, to keep this observation between the two of us.”

The girl nodded briskly at her mistress’s warning, even if the Espada delivered it gently.

“I would take the time that you need to sort things out. You’re welcome here any time. I will let the girls know that you’re staying the night, so that there aren’t any surprises in the morning. Leave off worrying about the First for tonight and sleep,” Harribel suggested and then rose, indicating that she should follow.

“I would give you a bit of advice, however.”

“Yes, Harribel-sama?”

The Third opened the door to her study and ushered Hana through, closing it behind her carefully. Then she turned to the girl and gave Hana a grave look as they walked down the darkened hallway towards the room that her superior had set up for the night.

“It seems to be part of the Shinigami and human mentality to ponder possibilities that might exist, or might not exist, to wish things had taken a different turn. We Arrancar, in most cases, live in the here and now and those of us who consider other outcomes are few and far between. For every event that takes place, there are a thousand might-have-beens. In order for one outcome to exist, we must sacrifice all others. Sometimes the choice is ours. Sometimes another makes it for us and we must go with the tide.”

Harribel stopped before a door and slid it open, revealing a small room with a heavy futon and blankets already laid out on it, as well as a small bundle of clothing. She recognized the folded, black cloth of an outer kosode and hakama on top. The Espada reached out and tipped Hana’s chin up, looking down into her newest fraccion’s eyes.

“Do not linger too long on thoughts of what might have been, Hana, lest they drag you into despair and keep you from taking what the here and now offers. I’ve had a recent reminder of that as well. Goodnight.”

Hana bowed her head as Harribel turned on her heel and walked back down the way she’d come, and she knew the woman had quietly dismissed her. Ducking into the room and sliding the door closed, she wasted no time in setting aside the clothing in favour of falling on to the futon and closing her eyes.

Her sleep was fitful at best and while she felt far more in control when she woke to the sound of a pair of knuckles tapping against the doorframe, she was far from ‘put together’. The knocking turned out to be her Taichou, letting her know he was leaving for the office early and that she could take some time coming in, thanks to the concocted excuse her two superiors came up with last night. She considered staying and greeting the other girls in the house, but if she was going to spend more than a night at the 3rd Division barracks, Hitsugaya Taichou was right. She would have to clear the tiny room normally set aside for each seated officer of boxes of records. The remnants of her purge and reorganization of the Division’s accounts were stacked in row upon row of boxes. Living at Jushiro’s Estate meant that she’d used the room as overflow storage in lieu of sleeping there. Now, she realized, unless she wanted to sleep on the boxes themselves, she’d have to clear enough room to lie down.

The next three days and nights fell into a strange pattern. She would leave on patrol at sunset, return at sunrise, and check in with her Mistress first, then check in with her Fukutaichou. When she explained why her arrival was later than the rest of those who had similar patrols, the current second-in-command simply shrugged and asked for her report. Either her Taichou had given him a head’s up, or he had decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. Hana hoped it was the latter. She didn’t want to seem as if she had special privileges and the usual rumours, about her sleeping with her superior officer, didn’t help. The last thing she wanted was to pour more fuel on that particular fire.

She ate in the mess, dealt with the minimum paperwork required of those on night patrol duty and then promptly curled up in the spot she’d managed to excavate in her ‘official’ quarters for a few hours of rest. At least, while on night patrol, she was exempt from battles. When the attack came on the second day following her run-in with the Escapees, she slept through it, waking an hour before sunset to find that she was only one of a handful of those lucky enough to have been officially excused from the battle. She caught Hitsugaya-Taichou slogging back through the Division’s door, covered in ichor and reeking of exhaustion and recent violence.

“Sir?”

“I’m headed for the showers if anyone asks. Our 4th Seat will be in tomorrow with the tally of the dead. Go to your patrol as usual and see if you can find any stragglers while you’re at it. If you do, kill them, no exceptions,” he ordered blearily and ran a hand through his grime and guts-covered hair, then made a face and disappeared into his office. Following him to ask him any questions, Hana knew, would be a bad idea.

Her patrols yielded nothing, even on the eve of the latest battle. The only thing she saw going on involved the mop-up squads, civilian and Shinigami, carting off their own dead and injured or dragging the carcasses of the fallen Swarm to be burned. Everyone, Shinigami and Arrancar alike, had the same worn out expression. The Swarm’s latest tactic seemed to involve grinding the Seireitei’s defenders down, leaving them only the barest chance to recover and regroup for the next round of attacks.

She saw no one she knew, other than in passing from her own Division and she didn’t encounter Ajuga or Diaemus, even though she knew they would be on the field at the end of the day, when the risks were lower. Hana encountered none of the Espada either, but that was no surprise. Starrk and Lilinette usually ended up coming back to the Estate very early in the morning after the obligatory after-battle meetings, with ‘take-ji in tow.

Thoughts about the First, her mother and her adoptive uncle, even Ajuga and Diaemus, usually led to a feeling as if someone was sitting on her chest, trying to keep her from taking a good, deep, needed breath. She’d never been away from the Estate for this long, even while attending the Academy, as her mother’s position, not as Taichou, but as Starrk’s fraccion, allowed her to remain at home throughout her education. She’d never been away from any of them for this long and it was disconcerting to wake up to a strange ceiling, surrounded by filing boxes and old accounting papers.

Hitsugaya-Taichou informed her that he’d met with her mother, and with Harribel while she’d been holed up, asleep in the barracks, a pillow over her head to keep the light out. While her mother had been upset to hear about what had happened on Hana’s patrol, she was glad that her daughter was fine. The Third had been the one to suggest letting Hana have the time she needed to come to terms with her sudden and unexpected exposure to the truth, and that she and her girls, as well as Hitsugaya-Taichou would keep an eye on her while she worked things out.

He also let her know something that brought her no end of relief: there were no reports the morning following the run-in with Shihoin Yoruichi or Sarugaki Hiyori that made any mention of either of them or Starrk. The collective First had simply finished the patrol and then come home and promptly went to bed without a word to anyone. It would seem that they’d all dodged a proverbial bullet, considering Aizen’s mood of late.

Concentrating on her work made Hana feel less like a child, less adrift. Losing herself in the never-ending task of paperwork organization was second nature to her, but as the week went by, she began to miss the small things she’d taken for granted at the Estate. Living in the barracks with the majority of her Division was eye opening, to say the least. In the course of a few days, Hana came to realize just how oddly privileged she’d been, growing up in the shadow of the First.

She took that, as she did all of the other input in the last week and tried to add it to the equation forming in her head that represented Starrk and Lilinette and what they’d done fifteen years ago.

They’d taken on four opponents and defeated them all.

They’d killed Hana’s father, then Claimed the two people closest to him as war trophies

They’d probably saved the lives of those two people and hers in the process, considering how many of the others treated their own ‘pets.’

She’d grown up in a house filled with conquerors, like Starrk and Grimmjow and the conquered, like ‘take-ji and Karin and Nanao, and yet no one acted as they were either slave or master within the Estate’s walls.

If Starrk and Lilynette had failed and fallen during the battle, Hana would have grown up knowing her father, on the Kyoraku Estate.

If Starrk and Lilynette had not won, she would not be friends with Ajuga and Diaemus, as the two hybrids would mostly likely not exist.

On the Friday of that week and once back on a day schedule, she found herself sitting on her Taichou’s sofa, staring at a blank ledger page, brush poised in midair for at least five minutes while all of the different possible outcomes swirled around in her head, in place of the calculations that ought to have been there. The ink filling the brush was probably dry by now and it was her own fault, for letting her mind wander. Hana had to admit that Harribel had been right… dwelling on might-have-beens had gotten her nowhere. The equation in her head had too many ‘what ifs’ on either side to balance properly and she either needed to discard some irrelevant data, or acquire better information.

The only person she knew that might have the information she needed and remain objective was busy filling out forms and scowling down at the paperwork in his ‘in’ box.

“Stuff multiplies like rabbits…” she heard her Taichou say to himself as he hunched over his desk.

Giving up on filling out last month’s expenditures and transcribing receipts, Hana leaned forward and rubbed her eyes. The tea she’d made was still in the pot, untouched, gone cold while they’d struggled to catch up with the inevitable reports and paperwork backlog before the next attack occurred. As much as she disliked reheated tea, it would take too long to make a fresh pot and at least this way it would be strong. She pulled the clay pot into her lap, gently warmed the liquid within it with Kido until it started to steam a bit from the spout, and poured two cups. Taking one, she put the other in front of her superior officer, startling him out of what looked like a serious funk.

“Here sir. It’s probably too strong…”

He surprised her by taking it, tossing it back and grimacing a little.

“Just a bit. Doesn’t matter. I’ve had worse. Much worse.”

“You did?”

“My old Fukutaichou’s tea could peel paint from the walls. I think we used it for that exact purpose when we last needed to refinish the wood floors.”

“Oh.”

Hana hesitantly took a sip from her own cup. It _was_ overtly bitter from having steeped for too long, but maybe she just had a spoiled palate for tea, since Ajuga had taken over as the Estate’s tea expert. Cradling her cup in her hands, she glanced at the man behind the desk.

“Sir, if you don’t mind, I wanted to ask you something.”

He looked at her, raising one pale eyebrow and his brush stopped moving.

“Go on…”

“Did you know my father well? Mother and ‘take-ji never really talked about him, though mother wears that pink haori of his every year, around mid-December.”

She bit her lip again, a habit she was going to have to try to break if she didn’t want a permanently bruised mouth. Her Taichou put his brush down on its stand, laced his fingers together and rested his chin on them, considering her question. His expression seemed neither happy, nor unhappy. If anything, he seemed truly fatigued and Hana began to regret asking him anything when he spoke again.

“Yes, I knew him.”

“What was he like?”

The white-haired man closed his eyes, and when he opened them, he looked straight at her, his turquoise gaze cool and brooding.

“Do you want the truth?”

That he’d say this made Hana frown.

“Of course! Weren’t you friends?”

“Hana, we were colleagues, fellow Taichou and he was a great deal older than I was. I wouldn’t exactly say we were ‘friends.’ There were a lot of things I admired about him including his skill, his Bankai, how powerful he was… but he had some serious character flaws as well. I don’t want to ruin any image you might have built up in your head, because you’ve already had a shock this week and I don’t want to force another on you before you’ve dealt with this one.”

He sounded very serious about this and Hana gave the warning some thought before she nodded. He took that as a ‘go ahead’ and rubbed his eyes.

“If there was one word that springs to mind when I think about your father, off the top of my head, I’d have to use the word ‘inebriated.’”

Hana choked on her mouthful of tea.

“Sir?”

“I think I can count on one hand the number of times I saw him completely sober and have a few fingers left over. The next word I’d use would be ‘lazy.’ If memory serves, your mother, his Fukutaichou, was the one that did all of the heavy lifting around the 8th Division. From what I saw, Ise Nanao ran the place, and tried to keep your father, her Taichou, upright and focused on his job. I don’t think he ever met a horizontal surface he didn’t try to use for napping purposes and no sake bottle was safe from him.”

Bewildered, Hana sat there while her Taichou rose from his seat and went to stand next to the window near his desk, his back turned to her as he looked out onto the 3rd Division grounds.

This wasn’t what she’d expected to hear.

_Father was a drunkard_ _…_

“He was constantly and shamelessly flirting with any and all females who would pay attention to him and he had quite a reputation with the ladies. The man could walk into any meeting, including the Soutaichou’s, and turn it into a bloody party. Failing that, he’d sleep through it, hiding behind that ridiculous hat of his so that no one could tell his eyes were closed.”

_…_ _and a slacker and a womanizer as well?_

The young man at the window had his hands clasped behind him and he seemed oblivious to Hana’s shock.

“Officially, he and Ukitake Jushiro were the Soutaichou’s students, his best ones and the most powerful of the Taichou, with the exception of Unohana-Taichou. He had little use for Central 46’s edicts, but he upheld them, only as much as he had to. He came from a Noble family but there was some… distance between he and his relatives if I recall. I don’t think he cared much for the Noble lifestyle and obligations and they didn’t care much for his ‘three-sheets-to-the-wind’ approach to life.”

He fell silent for a few minutes after that, which was just as well. It took Hana that long to sort out everything he’d said. The image she put together, from her Taichou’s description, wasn’t particularly flattering and left her very confused. The young Shinigami couldn’t imagine her efficient, order-loving mother putting up with such behaviour from anyone, let alone falling in love with someone that sounded like a complete scoundrel. Maybe Hitsugaya-Taichou’s description wasn’t as objective as she’d hoped it might be, or worse, that it was more accurate than she’d anticipated.

“That being said,” he continued, still gazing out at the clear blue sky beyond the windowpane, “I don’t think there was any other Taichou as committed to the ideals Yamamoto-Soutaichou put forth for the Gotei 13 than your father. That and his troops loved him. I think they’d have followed Kyoraku–Taichou over a cliff if he’d asked them. He had that kind of charisma. People liked him, because he put them at ease and because he didn’t stand on formality or put himself above them. There were rumours that if anything were to happen to the Soutaichou, your father would have been a strong contender to succeed him in the First Division. Personally, I think he would have done everything in his power to keep that from happening because it might actually require him to put in a full day at the office.”

“You sound as if you didn’t like him, sir.”

Her Taichou’s back stiffened, but he didn’t look around.

“I said he had some serious character flaws. Most people do. I never said that I did not like and respect him for the good qualities he had. He was one of the first Taichou to treat me as an adult, with the full regard that came with the office, back before it was just window-dressing for Aizen’s demented ego,” he said in a quiet voice. “He was, in his own way, a fine man and a decent Shinigami when he chose to be.”

“Sir!”

Hana sat up straighter and cast a worried look at the door. He didn’t seem to be that concerned that his words would get back to the leader of the First Division, however. Still, he signed and finally turned to look at her.

“Ukitake-Taichou could tell you more about your father, at least on a personal level, than I can. I’m sure what he might tell you would put what I’ve just shared with you to shame. After all, I believe that they went through the Academy together.”

Then she realized what he was really trying to tell her.

“Do you think I should go home and talk to ‘take-ji.?”

Her Taichou ran fingers through hair that she’d noticed was getting a little on the long and shaggy side. Glowering irritably at his bangs, he brushed them aside and looked at her squarely.

“That’s not for me to decide. I only suggest it because the people who would be best able to answer your questions aren’t currently in my office. In addition, I think there’s something that you might want to consider when it comes to the First Espada.”

His brows knitted into a frown, a normal expression for him, so she waited for him to continue while she helped herself to another strong cup of too-strong tea. At the very least, it would help fight off the mid-afternoon drowsiness. Her Taichou appeared to be mentally arguing with himself, or maybe, his Zanpakuto, since his hand was resting on the hilt.

“What I tell you does not leave this room. That includes sharing it with your Mistress.”

“O…Okay. What is it?”

Hana wondered what could be so important that she couldn’t share it with their shared Espada.

“While the obvious casualties of the loss of the War are we Shinigami, I think Aizen might have created a separate set of victims when he went scouting for allies in Hueco Mundo. I’m not sure it applies in all cases,” he cautioned, speaking in a low voice that she had to lean forward to hear, “but he’s made some very manipulative promises that I’m not sure he intends to honour.”

She must have looked utterly lost at sea at this point, because he grumbled a little and then tried again, returning to his desk, taking a seat and another sip of tea. When he’d finished grimacing, he asked, “Hana, what makes a Hollow a Hollow? This ought to be rudimentary for you.”

“Negative emotions, the lack of a konso coupled with unfulfilled desires tying a soul to a life that has ended,” she answered promptly, from memory. He nodded, and then looked at her pointedly.

“A textbook answer. Now, tell me, what is the difference between a lowly, garden-variety soul that has turned into a Hollow and a full-fledged Espada?”

“Their form, their size, their intelligence, how they look, their power…”

He shook his head and held up one, ink-stained finger.

“Power is the only important difference, Hana. The negative emotions and unfulfilled desires that created both sorts of Hollow remain at the core of the soul in question, no matter the power they wield. The rest is superficial. I had an epiphany the other day: discover out what lies at the heart of what drove them to become or made them what they are and you’ll find out how to relate to them.”

Hana stared at him, digesting what he’d told her. Was he telling her to forgive the First? She didn’t feel she was ready to do anything like that, let alone go back to how things had been before she’d discovered the truth.

“What does this have to do with Mistress Harribel, other than the fact she’s an Espada?”

Her superior officer rubbed his forehead and then rested his chin on his clasped hands, elbows on the desk.

“She shared a few things with me that made me decide that the woman holding my Claim is worthy of a great deal of compassion. Perhaps you’ll find something similar if you dig deep enough with the First.”

“Are you in love with Mistress Harribel?”

Hana had no idea where the question had come from and she immediately held up her hands in apology when he gave her a hard look.

“I’m so sorry! It’s none of my business and I’ve overstepped my bounds and I…”

“Maybe.”

Hana realized she was hiding behind her teacup, babbling, when he said this and peeked over the rim at him. His face was a study in both resignation and resolution.

“I’m not sure if you’re truly aware of this, Ise Hana, but outside of this Division and your role in it, you outrank me as a fraccion attached to my mistress. In theory, you’ve every right to ask that question and expect an answer.”

She’d never thought about it that way, but when she considered his status as a ‘pet,’ even if he didn’t act like it with Harribel, Hana reluctantly had to agree with his self-assessment. Still, it had been an incredibly rude thing to ask.

“I apologize, Taichou. I just… the other night, you two seemed… well, you two seemed a lot like Karin and Grimmjow, in that you’re really close… uhn, I mean… ah…”

It did not escape her notice that he buried his burning face in his folded arms on his desk as she made the comparison and she kicked herself for opening her mouth a second time and adding another foot already there. Maybe, she thought, she should just drop it, for both their sakes. He seemed to be of the same mind, because he glared at her over the top of his arms.

“Those ledgers aren’t going to balance themselves and I’ve three more folders of requisition receipts to throw at you once you’re finished with what’s in front of you. You’re aware of the notice from the First Division that our accounts need to be up to date and our books in order by the end of the month?”

Hana gaped at that as he grumbled it out, effectively changing the subject.

Well _that_ was unwelcome news. She could only imagine the panic-fest going on right now in every other Division, but for Aizen’s and theirs. The 3rd Division’s accounts were at least up-to-date through the last month, she thought with some justifiable smugness.

“No sir… Masahito-san didn’t tell me when I saw him at breakfast. I think he was half-asleep though. He had his face in his coffee cup and I’m not sure if he was drinking it or napping in it.”

“Well, you’re aware of it now.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll try to have as much done by tonight as I can.”

When he put things like that, there was little to do but get back to work and hope that she had every receipt. Hana hated chasing down bits of information or stray slips of paper when the accounts were due.

Unfortunately, where it came to her personal dilemma, she knew that her Taichou was correct and where she had to go to find a resolution. Hiding in the barracks wouldn’t get her anywhere.


	30. Claiming Disaster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ggio has a very bad day.

Karin awoke to the sound of someone pounding his or her fist on the front door of the Estate. She sat up in confusion, for it was well past midnight and too late for a visit from anyone that they knew. Fishing around in her head, she tried to remember if anyone had latched the gate. Maybe Hana was home early, but if that was the case, why was she knocking? The girl had a key. She could see Grimmjow already on his way towards the door, his irritation at the unexpected wake-up call apparent, both in the seething state of his reiatsu and with what came to her through their bond. No doubt, his enhanced senses had picked up the disturbance long before her human ones had registered the visitors at all. Whoever was on the other side of the door had better have a good reason for calling this late at night… no, she winced and looked at the clock on the small table in the corner of their room, this early in the morning.

She cast her sight out in order to take a look at whoever it was that was about to incur the Sixth Espada’s wrath. Tatsuki and Tesra were very easy to recognize, but it took her a moment to identify the other reiatsu signature. Surprisingly, it belonged to Soi Fon. Karin had little contact with the woman normally, which explained why she hadn’t recognized who it was right away.

What in the Hell was going on that the three of them were here this late at night? From the agitated state of their collective reiatsu, she knew that this wasn’t going to be a social call. Then she took a closer look. Tatsuki’s reiatsu seemed a bit ‘off’ in addition to being upset. She had never noticed it before thanks to the glasses, but without them on she could see the coils of reiatsu centered in the lower belly of each woman, the size and amount of reiatsu in Soi Fon’s more prominent and larger than Tatsuki’s. In Karin’s mind, there could only be one cause for the coils: her human friend was pregnant. However, she doubted that Tatsuki’s pregnancy would cause them to drop in on the Estate, especially with Soi Fon of all people by their side.

There were two pregnant women on their doorstep, one human and one Shinigami and suddenly, Karin decided that letting her mate answer the door alone might be a mistake. She didn’t want him hurt, after all.

Thus, Karin crawled out of bed, pulled a yukata on and sprinted towards the main door, just in time to see Grimmjow answer it with a half-snarl, which died on his lips as he saw who was just beyond the threshold.

“Can we come in? We weren’t sure where to come with this problem and…”

Tesra’s voice betrayed just how unhappy, afraid and worried he was.

“Is your Espada not seeing visitors at this hour?” Grimmjow growled at the fraccion, one eye half shut and running a hand through mussed, blue hair.

“I’m sorry, Grimmjow-sama, but this… this isn’t really something he would be inclined to deal with. Considering our conversation at the… dinner party earlier this month…”

Her mate’s eyebrows rose up at this, and then he leaned back and turned to look at her as she stood in the shadows, giving her a ‘well, what now?’ face. Surprise now warred with the grumpiness as far as his expression, with surprise winning out after a few seconds.

Karin’s eyes narrowed in what she hoped he would understand was an order to ‘let them come in or else no sex for a week.’ He apparently got the non-verbal warning, as he sighed and opened the door wider for them to enter.

“Bring them to our private sitting room. I’ll make some tea and see if Lilynette left any snacks in the kitchen,” Karin told him quietly.

She turned on her heel and hurried back to the suite of rooms that served their family, to the small kitchen just off the small gathering area. A few minutes later, she heard her mate usher the other three into the room and Grimmjow lit a few of the lamps to alleviate the gloom. Pulling down the teapot, cups, and a half-full package of assorted cookies that one of Nanao’s Division members brought back from the Living World a few weeks ago, she hastily put together something to serve their guests. People showing up at this hour rarely had good news to deliver and she had a sickening feeling that whatever had driven Tesra _here_ , and not to his own Espada, was not going to be something resolved quickly.

“Mother?”

Ajuga wandered into the kitchen, rubbing her eyes and lashing her tail sleepily, appearing as rumpled as her father had been. No doubt she’d heard the commotion Karin had caused in the kitchen, as well as the sound of strangers in the house and popped into her parents’ quarters to see what was going on.

“It’s Tatsuki with Tesra and Soi Fon. Your father is making them comfortable in the sitting room. Why don’t you go back to bed? If it’s something I can share, I’ll tell you about it in the morning,” Karin suggested, arranging the cookies on a small square plate.

“Alright.”

Ajuga returned to her room, yawning wide enough for her mother to see her sharp fangs, without an argument.

Karin doubted her daughter would go back to sleep, but at least Ajuga was out of the way. Something told her that Soi Fon would be more comfortable without a large audience. Even from here, Karin could feel Soi Fon’s anguish. Her reiatsu was in such disarray that even someone completely inept at reading energy patterns would know she was in a great deal of emotional pain. This kind of stress could be hazardous to the baby and the first thing she vowed to do was calm the expecting mother down as much as possible.

Once she’d poured boiling water over the loose tea in the bottom of the teapot and hauled the refreshments into the sitting room, she had to take a mental step back and reassess that last thought. She hadn’t seen Soi Fon physically until now and she was possibly even more distraught than her reiatsu had indicated. She was to the point of actual tears, some still falling and her face was red and puffy, as if she had been sobbing for some time. The small, dark-haired woman had curled into as tight a ball as her growing, pregnancy-distended belly would allow. She was also much too thin for someone this far along in a pregnancy. The one wrist she could see, clutching her bare calf looked too bony and her half-starved state told Karin that what Tatsuki had originally told her at the little afternoon get-together was true: Barragan had been using any method that wouldn’t dirty his own hands to kill the former Taichou and her baby.

Abuse, food deprivation and now whatever had brought them to Starrk’s den… Karin wasn’t sure she’d be able to calm the poor Shinigami down at all.

 _Don_ _’_ _t worry about calming her down. Right now, just get her fed and find out why they_ _’_ _re here. One thing at a time,_ she told herself.

Tatsuki was little better. Instead of misery, her human friend radiated white-hot rage. Karin knew her well enough to tell she was royally pissed. If Soi Fon expressed her suffering by crawling into a defensive position, Tatsuki’s took the form of pacing. She moved back and forth, bristling like a mother tiger whose cubs were threatened. Knowing that Tatsuki and Tesra had planned to adopt Soi Fon’s child, that might very well be the case, Karin realized.

Of the three, Tesra seemed the most composed, but that wasn’t saying much, considering the state of the women in his company. The fraccion seemed more shell-shocked and horrified, as if he were having some trouble understanding something. The one-eyed Arrancar took up a spot near the door, resting his shoulders against the wall in a posture reminiscent of a guard and an unassuming coat tree, as if he was trying to be both protective and to stay out of the way of the three females.

Grimmjow had taken his usual seat in the armchair, surveying the assembly with a ‘well, isn’t this just wonderful’ expression and took the cup of tea that Karin gave him after she’d poured the first round.

“You three are up late,” she said as she handed out cups to their guests. She was glad she’d had an adequate supply of the herbs for Aizen’s tea recipe, the one that helped calm nerves, because all three of their visitors needed it. Handing out that tea recipe was, perhaps, the only good Aizen had ever done anyone. She must have been staring at Tatsuki’s midsection because the other woman spoke first.

“Yes, I am, and we know.”

Tatsuki looked straight at Karin, standing still long enough to make that announcement, managing a small, apologetic smile before she started pacing again. “There’s no need to go into details now though. I can tell you about it later.”

“Ah, good, congratulations to you both,” Karin replied, and smiled at her friend as she sat down on the same couch as Soi Fon. Part of her wanted to pull the woman into a comforting hug, but her better judgment told her to give the woman a small amount of space for now.

“Know what?” Grimmjow demanded with a grunt, leaning forward in the chair and growing visibly edgy, like he was ready to make an escape from what was, clearly, going to be ‘emotional female stuff.’

“That Tesra and I are going to have a baby.”

Tatsuki said this with another smile, but this time, she kept moving, as if the motion helped her focus. “Rangiku is pregnant as well. According to Szayel, our due dates are pretty close together.”

The blue haired Espada nearly spit his tea back into his cup and his eyes took on the dimensions of dinner plates.

“Nnoitra as a father, that I can’t wait to see,” Grimmjow laughed. It sounded like more of a raucous series of barks, which trailed off as Karin gave him a sharp glance. Then he shrugged and tilted his head back to look at the only other male in the room. “Granted, he did a half decent job with you, runt,” he conceded, giving Tesra a nod.

“Ah, thank you. He may not believe it yet, but I believe Nnoitra-sama will be a good parent. It might just take some time for him… to get used to the idea.”

“That is good news, but I doubt that you came all this way at this time of night to tell me you and Rangiku are expecting. What happened?” Karin asked, deeply concerned.

With that simple question, Soi Fon began to cry anew and wrapped a hand protectively over her stomach and Tatsuki bared her teeth, her face twisted into an expression so utterly demonic that Karin drew back in alarm, her brown eyes widening in alarm.

“Barragan has made it impossible for Ggio to reinstate his Claim on Soi Fon, and in about three months the Claim will fade to nothing. That’s assuming that she doesn’t accidentally break it herself during combat,” the other human seethed. A glance at Tesra, whose own countenance seemed on the stormy side, confirmed it.

“How?” Karin probed, even though she feared she already knew the answer and Tatsuki’s words only confirmed what she’d suspected as the entire sordid story became known.

“I can just never get enough of this,” Ggio whispered happily, as his hands rested on Soi Fon’s stomach, feeling his child kick.

They sat together in one of the gardens with Soi Fon nestled in his lap so his arms encircled her and his hands rested palms down on her swollen abdomen. It had become a favourite position of his since the child starting kicking. There was a time Soi Fon might have resented any male holding her in his arms in such a proprietary manner, would have struggled against him, but now, contentment was all he could feel coming from her, adding to the bliss in his own heart.

He should have noticed Barragan’s return. He had never before failed to greet his Espada’s at the door when he got home, as Barragan ordered him to do when they’d first taken over this grand Estate. However, Ggio was so lost in the feel of the warm body pressed against his and the strong thumping against his palms by his own child that he completely missed the fact that the Second had returned, unannounced and unexpected.

“Ggio,” Barragan snarled as the self-proclaimed monarch marched furiously into the garden with a subdued and, as usual, stunning-looking Yumichika trailing behind him.

Startled, Ggio scrambled up from behind Soi Fon, leapt to his feet, and whirled to face the wrathful, grizzled visage of his master. Then he prostrated himself, grovelling on his knees before the one he served.

“Barragan-sama, I…”

“Silence,” Barragan commanded with an ugly grunt.

Ggio snapped his mouth shut and remained in his subservient position. He could feel Soi Fon watching the exchange worriedly.

“It would seem your loyalty isn’t what it used to be, boy!” Barragan stated, his grouchy voice dripping with venom as he looked over the last of his fraccion.

“No! Never, Your Majesty!” he quickly denied.

“I said silence,” Barragan ordered again, louder this time. “I find it disgusting that this concubine is more loyal and serves me better than one of my own men!” Barragan continued and folded his arms across his chest, hoary white eyebrows knitted in a frown above his aged face.

Ggio bit his lip to stop the protest he wanted to make. It would only make things worse if he tried to defend himself.

“You have failed in your duty to attend me as ordered, and without any reasonable excuse. You know the penalty for such negligence!”

Numbly, he nodded his head.

“Good, get the materials required and meet me in my throne room to receive your punishment.”

“Yes, Barragan-sama, as His Majesty desires,” he said brokenly.

He didn’t dare move until after Barragan had stormed out of the garden. Soi Fon looked at him worriedly from where she was still sitting on the grass, one hand on the hilt of her Zanpakuto. Even though they both knew she wouldn’t have been able to do anything against Barragan, not in her condition, old habits had a tendency to die hard.

“I’ll be alright,” he tried to reassure her. “You should get some rest, and something to eat. I think there are still some leftovers in my quarters from dinner. Go and eat that, before he can summon you.”

Soi Fon reluctantly nodded. He helped her to her feet before they both hurried on their way. Barragan was not a man to keep waiting. The staff that served them on the Estate Barragan had Claimed as his kingdom avoided him completely as he walked into the storeroom just off from the large banquette hall that Barragan had turned into a throne room. This small room once held chairs and tables, mats and linens meant for the former owners’ guests. These days, it held implements for both torture and pleasure.

He looked at the wall full of items that could deliver either, depending on the wielder, before reluctantly making his way down to the end of the wall. The things on this end of the room could only deliver pain and lots of it. While his transgression warranted something from the middle of the wall, he prayed that selecting something from this end, something that would cause unbearable agony would at least mollify Barragan enough to leave Soi Fon alone. He couldn’t bear the thought of her harmed for his mistake.

Ggio had only ever seen this weapon used once, against a servant who had tried to assassinate Barragan. Some of the servants say they can still hear the ghostly screams of the unfortunate soul echoing down the hallway on moonless nights. He’d even shivered when he’d heard the sounds the dying servant made, and this was back when he still believed in and worshipped the Second Espada.

Despite his decision, his hands still trembled as he took the innocent-looking black stick from the wall and entered the throne room. Barragan was already sitting there with Yumichika kneeling on a pillow, like a beautiful statue, to the Espada’s right. Barragan grunted when he noticed the weapon Ggio had chosen for his punishment, but said nothing of it nor gave any indication as to whether Ggio’s choice appeased him, angered him, or amused him.

Ggio knelt before the Espada and awaited further commands, presenting the weapon before him.

“Strip, you laggard!” Barragan ordered sharply.

He understood that to mean he had to disrobe completely. That definitely was not a good sign. Still, with an ‘As you command, Majesty’ he obeyed and returned to his kneeling position, head bowed as he awaited his punishment for failing in his duty. He only knew Yumichika had moved because he heard the rustling of expensive fabric. Delicate fingers came into view and wrapped themselves around the handle of the black rod.

“I’m so sorry,” Yumichika whispered to him.

Ggio gave the slightest nod of his head. Yumichika might be the one causing the pain, but Barragan’s will moved the pretty man’s hands, quite against the other’s wishes. The black stick rested against his back, feeling cool to his flushed skin, shortly before searing agony ripped through his body. Tiny sparks flew from the device, inflicting far more suffering than he had expected. Every pain receptor and every nerve ending the little sparks touched flared to unholy life. He didn’t, _couldn_ _’_ _t_ hold back his screams. Ggio knew Barragan wanted to hear them and he would do anything to keep that attention on him and away from Soi Fon.

He had no idea how long the torture lasted. His body was soaked in sweat from the adrenaline rush caused by the abuse. He’d curled up in a ball, muscles seizing and twitching as the little black rod tapped various places along his body. The rod left behind raised, red welts that throbbed. The worst had to be his groin and the inside of his mouth. That last one had made him see stars and he briefly lost consciousness. Gradually, the minutes between shocks had increased. He knew the brief time-outs weren’t due to any mercy on Barragan’s part. Barragan timed them so that Ggio could ‘appreciate’ the next wave of pain. This went on for what felt like hours, long after the sun had set and the sky beyond the windows had gone black. His throat was raw with screaming, reduced to whimpering each time the rod touched him.

This was, by far, the foulest thing Barragan had ever done to him. Ggio could not remember any punishment lasting for this long, nor could he recall any of his previous companions taking this kind of torment when they’d failed in some task.

He was so lost in misery that he, at first, didn’t feel the black rod probing his entrance until Yumichika forced it past the ring of muscle. He froze and turned tear streaked eyes towards his Master. No amount of self-control could stop them from squeezing out.

Barragan’s face remained unmoved by his fraccion’s state and Ggio knew better than to plead for lenience or attempt to escape the feeling of the rod tunnelling into him. The next wave of pain literally blinded him. All he could see was a negative image of the veins in his eyelids, white on black, as the electrical shock went straight up his spine and he lost control of his limbs. It took minutes for his vision to return and he honestly thought he might have blacked out for longer. When his mind cleared enough to realize what was going on around him the rod fired again, slamming him back into darkness and agony. This time when his vision cleared Ggio found himself on his belly, spread-eagled on the floor as his nervous system tried to recover from his near electrocution. The static that had filled his ears slowly dissipated and he heard Barragan’s heavy, plodding footfalls as the Second strode up to his helpless form.

“Whom do you serve?” Barragan demanded angrily and nudged him in.

“His Royal Majesty, Barragan-sama,” Ggio forced out, his voice quivering in agony.

“Who holds your unquestionable loyalty?”

Ggio opened his mouth to answer again, but paused when he noticed the look in his Espada’s eyes. To give the answer Barragan wanted would be to lie. Barragan was no longer the center of his world. Instead, all of his regard, all of his energy focused on his soon-to-be child and the woman who carried it. Tears streamed down his face as he hung his head in shame, remaining silent. Opening his mouth now would only result in a falsehood that might condemn the two that had replaced Barragan in his heart and might doom them all.

“Che!” Barragan sneered. “Clean yourself up and then return. Perhaps it is time that I remind you _exactly_ who your master is!”

It was so very difficult to force his body to move properly, under his own power, let alone get to his feet and stagger out of the throne room. He eventually, using the wall as a support, made it to his quarters. Once there, he discovered two large buckets waiting for him, one full of steaming water, the other empty, as well as two servants who wouldn’t meet his eyes. He silently stepped into the empty one, remaining as still as possible as two servants quickly cleaned him, ridding him of the sweat and stink that drenched his body. Once finished, they quickly helped him into a simple black yukata and he slowly returned to the throne room, limping all the way.

Soi Fon was there now, kneeling on the floor. Seeing her there, Ggio felt a stab of fear as he approached the throne and bowed beside her. Yumichika once again sat, as still as a stone statue on the pillow beside the massive chair, but Ggio could tell the ex-Shinigami was on edge, as if afraid to take a breath. Yumichika wasn’t the center of Barragan’s attention, however. Instead, the elderly Espada glared down on Ggio and Soi Fon, as if trying to figure out the best way to squash a bug.

“Don’t bother trying to lie to me. Don’t even bother speaking! I’m not stupid. You’re no longer loyal to me. I let you have her as a present, for being the only one of my fraccion to survive, as a reward for your steadfastness. I see I made a grave error in doing so. Instead of remaining devoted, you’ve taken up with this bitch and the whelp she carries in her disgusting womb. That makes you the worst sort of traitor Ggio, and there are repercussions for that kind of treachery! Get your worthless, snivelling hide over here!”

Trembling, Ggio rose and approached his master.

“Show me that you belong to me, and I may spare her life after Aizen is done with her,” Barragan commanded.

Nodding, Ggio set about pulling Barragan’s erection free of his uniform and wrapped his mouth around it. It was thick and his mouth still trembled with the aftershocks from his ‘session’ with the black rod. It didn’t help that his mouth was dry, he was still in a great deal of pain and, this close to the Espada’s flesh, he could taste an undercurrent of the rot that made up the Second’s power. He had to work to keep himself from gagging, or worse, vomiting in his master’s lap, as his insides didn’t seem to want to cooperate.

“Enough,” Barragan ordered barely three minutes later, a look of disgust on his face. “Finish the job properly.”

Ggio let the flesh slide from his mouth and climbed into Barragan’s lap, averting his gaze as one hand grasped the rod of flesh, wet with his own saliva and with the other, balanced himself. He was completely unprepared. With the addition of the pain racing over and _in_ his body from the horrid device, Ggio just knew this would hurt more than anything he had experienced so far.

Regardless, with his mate and child’s fate on the line, he forced his body down on Barragan’s length, whimpering at the intrusion into his abused channel. He wanted to pause, to give his poor torn hole a chance to adjust, but he knew better than to do that. He didn’t stop until his ass was flush with Barragan’s thighs, his blood already starting to stain the lower half of Barragan‘s white uniform.

Abruptly, Barragan grasped his thighs, taking him by complete surprise and that was when his entire world ended.

The Second stood up and twisted him around, his shaft remaining inside of Ggio, before bearing him to the ground. A hand grasped his head and forced him to look at Soi Fon while he remained on his hands and knees with his Espada’s greater weight on top of him.

“Take a good look at her, boy! Get an eyeful now! Thanks to her, you are no longer worthy to serve as one of my fraccion!” Barragan growled, shortly before thrusting into Ggio’s body. “You can blame her for your fate! She’s the one that forced me to take these measures!”

Along with Barragan’s cock, to his great horror, came a flood of both reiatsu and dreadful, unwanted pleasure.

“Wait, Barragan-sama!” he cried out in a rasping voice, to no avail.

For the first time ever, Ggio struggled against the Espada he had served almost his entire Arrancar life. It was utterly pointless, as he had nowhere near the strength to fight back against the Second on a good day, let alone after enduring such mistreatment.

Soi Fon’s eyes widened as she grasped what Barragan was doing to him and she tried to get to her feet, her hand going to Suzumebachi’s hilt. Ggio knew that if she did, if she tried to interfere, Barragan would use it as an excuse to kill her, no matter what Aizen had decreed. An Espada whose slave rebelled or attacked them was free to kill the slave if they wished, since it would indicate the Claim had worn away.

Maybe, that was what Barragan had planned all along and this was just the perfect excuse to kill Soi Fon without repercussions from Aizen.

With what little power he had left, he kept her on her knees, her hands empty and placed before her. Ggio’s eyes pleading for her to understand why he couldn’t allow her to attack the Espada currently assaulting him. Unfortunately, that meant that all she could do was watch in horror, tears streaming down her face as Barragan Claimed him, making it impossible to recast any further Claims of his own, leaving her vulnerable the moment his previously-cast Claim ran out. Considering the difference in their strength, she would be lucky to give birth before that happened.

It didn’t take long, and he let out a choking sob. The Claim forced his body to climax as Barragan finished with him, the Espada’s sharp teeth biting viciously into his neck to complete the binding. Then the weight was gone from his back and he collapsed to the floor, Soi Fon by his side in an instant.

“I’ll give you an hour to discard the slut wherever you see fit, and then you will have no further dealings with her, nor will you speak to me about her,” Barragan commanded sternly.

He felt the Claim tighten painfully around him, forcing him to nod his head in agreement with the Espada’s wishes.

“Be thankful I even gave you that. I’ll expect you to show sufficient gratitude when I return tomorrow, ‘pet!’ Now get the filthy cunt out of my sight!”

Despite the exhaustion caused by the Claim, Ggio had only one thing on his mind: to get Soi Fon and his child to safety. His world narrowed to that one task, above all others and there was only one person he could think of that he could trust.

“We have to move quickly!” Yumichika declared, scrambling up from the pillow in a flurry of expensive silk, helping Soi Fon to her feet first. “Can you think of a safe place?”

“Just one,” Ggio confessed and between Yumichika and Soi Fon, they managed to get him upright and walking in a somewhat straight line, even if he was dizzy and his vision kept wavering at odd moments, a side effect, he thought, of the black rod’s application and the energy drain from the Claim.

He had one hour remaining to spend with her, to try and convey all he could to her before he would never be able to speak to her again, unless Barragan had a sudden change of heart. Ggio almost wept again at that. Most Arrancar lacked such an organ. Expecting the Aspect of Old Age to change his mind, after all of this, was to hope for the impossible.

It almost took them the full hour, thanks to his dicey condition, to get her to the only place he could think of that would take her in, especially now. He barely had time to hold her one more time, to kiss her with as much passion as he could, before the Claim forced him to turn his back on her. It wrenched him around and forced him to put one foot in front of the other, to abandon her on the same doorstep where he’d gone begging for his child’s life a few weeks before. Yumichika, under no such order, chose to remain behind, to explain what had happened to the sleepy couple they had awoken so late at night.

Ggio felt like his entire world had just ended, as if he were suffocating. The iron-strong chains of Barragan’s Claim strangled him into obedience when all he wanted to do was run back to her side and hold onto her forever.

He returned to his quarters, or tried to return to his rooms. Instead, the servants nervously directed him to the kennel that had been Soi Fon’s home for the last 15 years. It would seem that Barragan had decided to continue his ‘discipline.’ He didn’t care, the place smelled strongly of her. That alone was more of a comfort to him than his own rooms would have been.

The next morning Barragan summoned Ggio to the throne room, where the Second officially stripped him of all of his status, declaring him nothing more than a ‘pet’ to be used for his own amusement. He was to wear nothing more than the black yukata unless directed otherwise. He was to take Soi Fon’ place in the household and handle all of the ‘duties’ she had performed when not performing the duties Aizen had assigned them.

When he returned to the kennel after his meeting with Barragan, he was horrified to see the servants had thoroughly cleaned it out and lined it with nothing more than fresh straw. Every bit of her scent was gone, erased as if it had never been there at all. The last little bit of comfort left to him was gone, no doubt on the Second’s orders.

“Ggio!” Yumichika called to him as the Arrancar stared at the kennel with eyes that didn’t really see it, or the straw or anything else for that matter. The ex-Shinigami hurried up to stand beside him and looked down at the kennel too. “I know you can’t ask, but Tatsuki informed me that, for now, Karin managed to get Starrk and Jushiro to agree to let her stay at the Ukitake family Estate. Tatsuki and Tesra are going to remain as close to her as they can. For now, at least, she’s all right. I also know that she’s had the first proper meal in a long while, courtesy of Karin and Nanao. I’ll try to follow her discreetly, for as long as I am capable of doing so, and I’ve asked the others to continue to pass on information should I also receive orders to cease communications.”

The knowledge sent a flood of relief through him. He’d been right to seek help from the two. Tears filled his eyes when he heard that she’d finally gotten some real food in her, after months of enforced neglect and he wiped them away with the back of one welted hand. It was small comfort and he nodded, the best he could do to thank Yumichika for the information, considering Barragan’s orders regarding his mate.

“Tesra also told me that Grimmjow… well let’s just say the Sixth is a little ‘miffed’ at what the Second’s done. I’m sure the news will get out now, about what he pulled. Setting up a powerful warrior for execution, for petty personal reasons, in a time of war,” and the former Shinigami shook his head, “It’s as if he’s _asking_ Aizen for a reprimand.”

Yumichika sighed and frowned, then looked up at the sky overhead.

“This is truly an ugly situation.”

 _That, my friend, is an understatement,_ Ggio mentally replied, depression and anguish settling in for a long, unwelcome stay.

Nothing mattered without her. He could feel the tremendous amount of grief coming from Soi Fon and he desperately clutched at that one last connection he had with her before it could fade, even if her sorrow only served to fuel his. Once it was gone, once his Claim fell away, she would be gone forever, possibly even executed unless she could find someone to take over her Claim. Ggio strongly suspected that his master would make sure none of the others would take her, leaving her to Aizen’s nonexistent mercies. Barragan would probably force him to watch the proceedings, silent and helpless.

The elegant hand that touched his shoulder startled him temporarily out of the downward spiral his thoughts took.

“It’s not much, but I did manage to salvage this. I think it would do you more good than her right now.”

As he said this, Yumichika pulled a long piece of fabric from somewhere in his elaborate kimono and handed it over to him. Ggio took it with trembling fingers.

He recognized the scarf, the one he had bought her years ago during the courtship ritual. The cream-colored silk was a little worn in spots, but for the most part still intact, embroidered all over with a clever pattern of hornets. It still had her scent and he snatched it from Yumichika hands, pulling in a deep breath to catch as much of her as he could. He wanted to hold onto it, to bury his face in it, but he knew better than to allow anyone to catch him with it in his possession. Barragan had taken everything he owned, denying him not only his rank but any personal things as well. Not even the kennel and the yukata were his, but his master’s to bestow or rescind as the Espada saw fit.

Instead, Ggio crawled quickly into the kennel and hid it deep within the straw that was to be his bedding until Barragan decided otherwise. Then he promptly fell down into said straw, emotionally, physically and in all other ways spent, and folded in on himself, shutting everything else out.

Yumichika left for an unknown amount of time, two hours perhaps, before he returned with a towel and a resolute look on his face. Ggio hadn’t moved an inch and the ex-Shinigami, seeing this, cursed softly. Then he reached down, found one of Ggio’s bare ankles and hauled the Arrancar out with a surprising amount of brute force. He barely registered the fact that the effeminate man had the strength to do so. Yumichika went nose-to-nose with him, and then that nose twitched and wrinkled in distaste.

“Come on, let’s get you cleaned up and wash this repulsive stink off your body. You still have blood and cum on your thighs, and I’m not going to get started on the state of your hair. She would slap you silly for letting yourself stay like this for so long!” Yumichika insisted, before dropping his voice lower. “We _will_ work something out, I know we will. For now, we must focus on the few things over which we do have some control. Right now, that means a bath!”

“What difference will it make?” Ggio muttered, voice and eyes dull, but did let Yumichika haul him towards one of the bathing houses meant for the servants’ use.

“Not much, but anything helps,” Yumichika answered. His words were honest and there was more than just determination behind them.

It took a moment before Ggio realized that Yumichika spoke from experience. No doubt what the short Arrancar felt now was similar to how Yumichika must have felt when he had first been Claimed, right after the slaughter of so many of his comrades. What’s more, he’d had to deal with it on his own, even if he insisted his background gave him the skills to cope with Barragan’s use of his body. Yumichika had barely known Soi Fon back then, the two having exchanged maybe a dozen words during their Shinigami careers. They had not been friends then; the difference in their ranks within the Gotei 13 had been too large and as a result, both had faced the path their futures had taken alone, tormented by two Arrancar at the time.

At least Ggio wasn’t exactly alone in this. He only faced one ‘master,’ not two and he had a fellow Claimed captive to share the burden, if nothing else. Yumichika would be there by his side, helping him cope with the nightmarish turn his life had suddenly taken.

He also had something else to spur him on.

Ggio had never felt anything like this, at least on his part. Nevertheless, he recognized its flavour, having spent years with the taste of the acid emotion in his mouth, courtesy of his Claim on Soi Fon. He wasn’t entirely sure if it sprang from him, or if he was feeling what she felt, but in the end, he decided that it didn’t matter.

If nothing else, he could keep going on the hatred that Barragan had kindled within him over the last twenty-four hours. He could keep it carefully banked and learn from his fellow prisoner how to keep it hidden, until the day he would put it to use.

“Sure, let’s go,” he agreed tiredly, straightening up a bit and following alongside the pretty, dark-haired man, rather than forcing the other to lug him any further.

He did need to clean himself up. He was a mess, compounded by the fact that everything on him had dried overnight. Now that he had calmed down a bit, he realized his entire body still ached from the lingering effects of the rod Barragan had forced Yumichika to use on him. His insides hadn’t recovered either and a day later, continued to ooze some blood. He needed to get that tended to as well. Thankfully, Yumichika would see to as much of that as he could. The rest would have to heal on its own.

“That’s what I want to hear,” the other said and offered him an encouraging smile as they stumbled towards the bath.

He had at least one friend who would assist him through this trying time and for now, his mate and unborn child were arguably safer than they had been while under Barragan’s roof.

At this point, he’d take what comfort he could.


	31. Centerfold

There was only one thing left for Tatsuki to do after a few days of putting out fires, and so she did it. She was tired from the long ordeal of assisting Soi Fon, getting her settled into a room in Ukitake’s Estate and making her eat every few hours to replenish her strength and her energy levels. However, now that Karin knew she was pregnant, she had to tell Orihime. It would be improper for her best friend from childhood to find out from anyone other than her. So here she was, early in the morning walking down the street towards the house Orihime shared with Ulquiorra and their son. Tesra wanted to join her, but he was required to attend to Rangiku. Now that Nnoitra knew she was with child, there had been talk of getting a bigger place as well as consolidating their two dens.

Tatsuki, in all honesty, didn’t mind the idea at all. She enjoyed hanging out with Rangiku and they would be able to spend even more time together. It would be easier on her husband as well. It was getting more difficult to balance the loyalty and protective instincts he felt for his mate with the ironclad duty he felt towards his master. The only reservations Tatsuki had about combining their households involved the actual acquiring of the larger house. When Hollows sought out a new den, they had a tendency to kill the current occupants. The last thing she wanted was for Nnoitra to slaughter some poor family because she and Rangiku needed a playroom.

Keeping that in mind, Tatsuki knew that living together would make things much easier when the children were born, not to mention getting through the pregnancy. It was going to be nice to have someone with whom she could commiserate through the morning sickness and backaches. Yes, Tatsuki was all for them moving in together, even if she had to put up with Nnoitra and his dismissive misogyny more often.

She hadn’t had a chance to speak to Rangiku since they’d gotten back from Szayel’s Division to have their ultrasounds done. At this point there was nothing really for them to see, and he’d set up the next set of tests and appointments. Tatsuki and Tesra had stayed for dinner, left Rangiku and Nnoitra once the Espada had returned from his shift and tucked into his dinner as if someone had starved him for a week. He’d waved the two away, releasing Tesra from his service for the night and they’d walked home, talking excitedly about the baby and retired shortly after that.

Then, at roughly one-o-clock in the morning, everything went topsy-turvy.

Soi Fon, Yumichika and Ggio had pounded on their door that night, and any thoughts regarding sleep promptly flew out the window while they sought out Karin’s help. She had slept most of the next day off while Tesra went about his normal duties, yawning while he did so. She had to chase him out the door, assuring him, she would be fine by herself for a few hours and that she didn’t need a 'keeper' to watch her.

_‘_ _I_ _’_ _m pregnant, not sick,_ _’_ she’d lectured him sternly. ‘ _Exercise is exactly what I should be doing so stop fussing and get to work already!_ _’_

She was glad Karin had taken in Soi Fon without any fuss from Grimmjow or from Starrk. Grimmjow had looked appalled when she’d related the story and Karin told Tatsuki that Starrk and Lilynette weren’t there, but out on night patrol, and that she would inform him in the morning.

What Tatsuki found interesting was Karin’s use of the word ‘inform’ rather than ‘ask’ when it came to the First’s hospitality. Either Karin was very sure that the First wouldn’t have a problem with Soi Fon, or the First had simply delegated extending it.

For whatever reason, she was glad Soi Fon had permission to say there. She and Tesra didn’t have the space and Soi Fon would be safer at Ukitake’s Estate, and with Karin. Her household was much larger with regard to people and space and had better protections. Barragan was only the Second Espada after all and no one, other than Aizen, seemed to want to take on Starrk and Lilinette.

She finally arrived at her destination, noting that Diaemus was sitting outside on the front porch eating breakfast. She found that strange. Orihime usually demanded that her mate and child eat together as a proper family. In addition, with the air still chilly and damp, Tatsuki knew her friend might not be pleased to find her son camped out on the front steps, bowl in hand, chewing on a few rolled omelettes and slurping down a large bowl of hot miso and tofu.

His sour expression didn’t bode well either.

“Diaemus-kun,” she greeted him, waving her hand as she came through the gate.

“Tatsuki-san,” he replied politely and finished the soup, setting the bowl down and starting in on the last omelette.

“Is your mother still in bed?” she asked. The kid didn’t seem very happy about something and Tatsuki grew concerned.

“Yes,” he muttered, sounding a little disgusted as he chewed.

“Oh? When do you think she’ll be up?”

Tatsuki debated on whether or not she wanted to wake her friend up, and then decided that she simply had to do it. _The news is big enough to risk it. If I don_ _’_ _t I will probably never hear the end of it._

“When father is finished with her,” Diaemus answered with a scowl.

“When father is…?”

_Oh._

Tatsuki began to snicker softly, realizing what the boy was getting at.

_Of course. How many times did I have to endure listening to that particular symphony in the morning while I lived here?_

No wonder Diaemus was outside. His ears were far sharper than hers were and Tatsuki knew just how noisy those two could be when they were going at it. In fact, now that she strained her ears and listened carefully, she could faintly hear the familiar sound of Orihime moaning passionately.

At one point, Tatsuki thought that she could hear her friend crying out Ulquiorra’s given name.

_Well, damn_ _…_ _no wonder Diaemus looks like he swallowed a lemon._

“I feel for you kid, I really do,” she said with some sympathy and patted him on the back between his wings.

Diaemus turned his head away from her, but she had a feeling it had more to do with wanting to hide the blush on his face than shyness. Ah children! She couldn’t wait until her child was old enough for her to taunt mercilessly when it came to boys and girls. Whatever digs she didn’t get in, she just knew Rangiku would manage. Tatsuki could already picture finding the first porn stash and poking at her child about it.

“So, how is your training going?” she asked, taking pity on the young hybrid and changing the subject to something he might be more comfortable discussing. That appeared to be the right move, as he brightened a little.

“Well. Father is pleased with my progress and he says my prowess during the battles is acceptable, when Karin-san permits us to participate,” he answered, sounding happy to be off the topic of his parents’ sex life.

“Is she finally letting you guys handle more?” Tatsuki inquired, genuinely interested.

“Yes. She’s permitted us to join nearly every battle at the end and she allowed us to participate fully in at least three full skirmishes in the last week or so,” he announced with a touch of pride in his voice.

The Swarm had been pushing their attacks up, coming every two days now. It was as if the insects were trying to do as much damage as they could before they holed up during the spring, as they always did. The Swarm usually broke things off as the weather warmed and the number of attacks would decrease as April approached.

There was a louder gasp from inside the house, followed by silence. After a few minutes, the sound of people moving about reached their ears.

“Ugh. Finally!” Diaemus mumbled sullenly, standing up and turning around to go back inside.

“You’ll understand one day,” Tatsuki said with a touch of compassion.

“I seriously doubt it,” he retorted and then opened the door. “Mother, Tatsuki-san is here!” Diaemus called this out dutifully as he led her into the house and disappeared, probably to hide in his room, like any other teenage boy. Orihime passed him on the way into the kitchen and he brushed by her, hunching his shoulders and trying to get out of the way of any impromptu hug as quickly as possible.

“Tatsuki-chan!” Orihime smiled in an overly cheerful way that, to Tatsuki, reeked of a post-orgasmic ‘high’. “What brings you by?”

“I have some good news,” she replied happily, helping herself to the hug that Diaemus had spurned.

“There is never enough good news. So what is it?”

Orihime’s expression told her that she’d better not leave anything out either.

“The juicy kind! The kind that people always guess first when you say ‘I have an announcement….’”

Tatsuki was grinning wildly now.

The other human seemed to ponder that. Then her face lit up with absolute delight as she jumped to a conclusion… an incorrect one.

“You created a new recipe?” she guessed, clapping her hands excitedly.

Tatsuki laughed at that. She was unsurprised that Orihime hadn’t gotten it right. Even after all these years Orihime could still be a bit obtuse at times.

“Actually, yes, I did, and I’ll give it to you afterwards, but that is not the news I have to share,” she smirked.

“No? Well…”

Orihime pondered some more, her big gray eyes blinking as she gave it some thought. Then she gasped

“Oh, you’re pregnant!!!”

She shrieked this, giving Tatsuki a look of profound hope that she was right this time.

“Yes!” Tatsuki answered, her grin now stretching from one ear to the other.

“That’s amazing!”

Orihime let out an excited squeal and pulled her into a tight hug.

“And not just me, but Rangiku too,” she added.

“No way! Awesome!!!”

“Volume, please,” Ulquiorra ordered calmly as he walked into the kitchen. The Espada looked perfectly composed, as if he hadn’t just been having wild, howler-monkey sex with her friend a few minutes ago.

“Sorry,” Orihime smiled at him sheepishly, then reached out and excitedly tugged on his sleeve. “Did you hear what Tatsuki-chan just told me?”

“I believe the entire District heard you,” he deadpanned, and then turned his green eyes to the stove and the counter next to it.

Tatsuki, while trying to play her guessing game with her friend, hadn’t noticed the pot of miso soup left simmering on the stove, nor the plate of rolled omelettes left under a cover. The Espada actually made a pleased sound, which surprised Tatsuki. Then again, maybe it shouldn’t have. Diaemus was a resourceful boy when he had to be and at his age, he ought to be more than capable of cooking a simple breakfast.

“It would seem our son made breakfast for us this morning. I shall thank him later. I’ve a patrol to complete today, if there’s no attack on the part of the enemy.”

“Oh!” Orihime gasped in embarrassment, whether from alerting the neighbours to Tatsuki’s good news, or for not making breakfast, Tatsuki wasn’t certain. When Ulquiorra reached for a bowl, Orihime tugged on Tatsuki’s arm and moved to pull her shoes on.

“Come on, we absolutely _have_ to go see Rangiku-chan so I can congratulate her properly! How did Nnoitra-san take the news?”

“Indifferently,” Tatsuki answered, and then gave a little shrug. “He’s neither for nor against it. The Fifth did tell her that if she wants the baby, it’s all hers. I thought it was a little callous, but Tesra insists that Nnoitra will defend his own baby.”

Orihime’s look of relief matched her own, as Tatsuki remembered that strange, terrifying scene at the 4th Division. She decided to omit that part of the story. If Rangiku wanted to share it, she could do so later on.

“That’s a huge relief! Have you seen Szayel yet?”

“Yes. He thinks Rangiku and I are at roughly the same stage in our pregnancies. We’re even due around the same time. He estimates that both should last about five months. We’ll see,” she cautioned. Orihime nodded absently at that, securing her sandals.

“Wow, you two are going to have children together!” Orihime gushed. “My shoes are on, what are we waiting for?”

Tatsuki spared a glance at the kitchen table, where Ulquiorra sat chewing on an omelette, looking uncannily like his son had not fifteen minutes before.

“Aren’t you going to have something to eat first?”

“Oh, no! I’m too excited. I can’t possibly eat now! Besides, we’re all out of strawberry jam, capers and horseradish, and those are my favourite toppings for omelettes. I’ll just have the leftovers cold for lunch and I can stop by the market and see if they have any of those things on hand. Oh, or maybe I could try some hot sauce, cupcake sprinkles and mayonnaise…”

Tatsuki shook her head and joined Orihime by the door, noticing that Ulquiorra had stopped chewing as her friend had given her a litany of what their pantry and condiment collection was missing. She swore his face went a few shades closer to matching his eyes. For that matter, so did hers. To avoid another bout of morning sickness rearing its ugly head, Tatsuki plucked at her friend’s arm and pointed with her chin towards the front gate.

“Well, let’s go. There are a few other things, but we can talk about them once we get to Rangiku’s place. I don’t really want to tell the story twice.”

She hated having to bring up poor Soi Fon, knowing it would overshadow the good news she’d wanted to share with her friends. They’d deal with it better if they didn’t have to hear things through the grapevine. Still the situation wasn’t completely hopeless yet. Karin promised that she would work on a way to save the other expectant mother.

With all of the dark things going on, it was definitely nice when a sunbeam like this managed to breach the clouds.

Karin was starting to feel like the Seireitei’s personal fix-it girl. Every time something went wrong, she ended up, somehow, involved in finding a solution. A part of her was pleased that everyone trusted her with his or her troubles, but the honour was wearing thin and she felt wrung out. Between Aizen’s harassment of Szayel and his household, her family’s issues and staying a step ahead of the Swarm, it was a wonder she had time to assist anyone else.

She was happy for Rangiku and Tatsuki, and yet she had to consider the horrible fate that awaited Soi Fon if she couldn’t figure out a way around Aizen’s decree concerning un-Claimed, Taichou-level Shinigami. It wasn’t as if the poor woman was at fault for her situation. However, it was hard to be happy for those two when the third pregnant woman she knew was in such distress and in such danger.

Karin had seen Grimmjow pissed several times in her life, and while this was not the angriest that he’d ever been in her experience, what Barragan had done had launched her mate into a fury that at least ranked in the top five. He wasn’t angry with the Second Claiming Ggio. The old rot-shrouded bastard had the right to do so. However, throwing out a pregnant, vulnerable member of his pack, when cubs were so rare… that’s what had crawled under her mate’s skin. Karin had been afraid that Grimmjow would storm over to the Estate where the nasty old spider had laired up and give Barragan a piece of his mind. Thankfully, he’d refrained from doing so, being smarter than that, but she suspected that the clearing where he and Ulquiorra trained the kids was wider now than it had been six days ago. When the Swarm wasn’t throwing itself against them, Grimmjow spent his time adding new craters to the landscape around the makeshift Cero and Bala instruction grounds.

While she was glad that he’d found a better outlet for his anger and frustration, it left her to be the calm, reasoned one in trying to resolve the mess. They had to find someone willing to hold Soi Fon’s Claim once it ran out. Starrk was out of the question, as the difference between the First’s power and Soi Fon’s was simply too great. Szayel already technically had two Claims, even if one was a ruse and Karin wasn’t going to toss Renji to the wolves that way. Nor would she do the same to Szayel, considering the subterfuge regarding Grimmjow’s Claim on the scientist.

Karin had no idea when her life had begun to resemble an elaborate Hell game and at some point, she was afraid that Aizen would figure out what was going on. It was the best she’d been able to manage at the time. That they’d kept the truth about Renji’s Claim hidden for this long amazed her, and she worried that at some point, their luck would run out.

“Karin,” Nanao’s voice cut through her tired, foggy thoughts, “have you seen Hana today?”

“No, I am afraid not,” she admitted.

That brought her to the third issue on her ‘to solve’ list.

Hana had left the Estate on the night that the truth had come out about how Shunsui had died in the war. Nanao’s daughter had declined to return as a result. She had been living in her quarters at the 3rd Division, and when not there, with Harribel and her fraccion. Karin could understand why the child felt the need to get away, especially after Nanao related what little she’d managed to pry out of the First about the incident and after a meeting with Toshiro and the Third. Unfortunately, the schism it caused between Hana and Starrk and Lilynette had affected Nanao as well.

Hana wasn’t the only one sulking. Karin had never seen Lilynette so depressed, and Starrk looked as though he had his own personal raincloud, drizzling down on his gloomy head. As worried as Jushiro and Nanao were, anything they might try to do to try to bring Hana around would only make things worse. As much as she hated to say it, they would have to wait and let Hana come back when the girl felt she was ready. Until then, Ajuga had been relaying any information she had learned about her Shinigami friend.

As much as she wished the Escapees luck in trying to take down Aizen, Karin also hoped that the next time Sarugaki Hiyori chose to open her mouth on the battlefield that someone would see fit to shove a sandal in it. She remembered the angry little Vizard and she hadn’t been impressed with her.

Ajuga had taken the news relatively well, but Ajuga had a Hollow’s understanding of about how things worked. Her daughter had never known Shunsui either and she couldn’t really feel hurt or upset about the death of someone to whom she’d had no connection or relationship.

That didn’t mean that her daughter wasn’t upset. Something else troubled Ajuga, and neither Karin nor Grimmjow knew what that was.

“I really wish she would come home,” Nanao sighed, and all but collapsed on the couch next to Karin, exhausted at the end of a long day.

Karin decided to focus on the issue in front of her, the one affecting her friend and former Kido instructor. She recalled how despondent Nanao had been when they had first met ten years ago, still mourning Shunsui’s death with nothing to distract her but the very thing that reminded her of the deceased man: their daughter. Karin’s arrival to train had been the first step in getting Nanao to open up and focus on other things. Yuzu’s arrival after three, Claim-minded idiot Arrancar destroyed Grimmjow’s first den only furthered Nanao’s recovery.

Right now, Karin wished her twin were here, if only so that Yuzu could help with the tangle of problems that life here kept dumping into her lap. No one was better at healing a soul than Yuzu, whether she used her sweet personality or a wooden kitchen spoon, preferably with something tasty on the end of it. Thankfully, Yuzu was safe, she hoped, in the Living World, where she belonged, as much as Karin wished she had access to Yuzu’s abilities.

“I’m confident that Hana will come to terms with what she learned. She has Toshiro to help her, and from what I have seen and heard of Harribel, the support of the Third and her fraccion.”

Nanao nodded her head, but Karin could still see the distress coloring her friend’s reiatsu and the threat of tears at the corner of her eyes. All of this only served to remind Nanao of the loss of the man she had loved and forced her to recall that she lived by the charity of the man who had killed him.

_I should check to see how Jushiro is doing. If Nanao is this torn up, how is he holding up being reminded that he is sleeping with the man who killed his best friend?_

Jushiro was older and more experienced with the pain of loss and war, but Karin thought that he was probably more worried about Hana and her relationship with Starrk than in pain over Kyoraku Shunsui.

Nanao let out a bit of a hiccup, and without missing a beat, Karin moved next to the woman and pulled her into a tight hug. She used one hand to rub circles over Nanao’s back as her normally competent Taichou dissolved into quiet sobs, shaking as she tried to wipe away the saltwater leaking from beneath her glasses. Karin didn’t mind and simply held her, making soothing noises as Nanao let all of the pain out.

If Hana didn’t come around soon, Karin would have to take a detour and see if she couldn’t reason with the girl and at least get her to speak to her mother and Jushiro.

Soi Fon appeared at the doorway and stared at them for a moment, her own eyes red and puffy with the evidence of fresh tears. Nanao’s distressed reiatsu probably summoned the ex-Shinigami Taichou. Clearly seeing that Karin had things under control, Soi Fon made to leave, before pausing and staring at them indecisively for a long minute or two. Finally, her mind clearly made up over whatever internal debate she’d had with herself, she joined them, sitting down on Nanao’s other side and giving Nanao a hug of her own. The three of them comprised one big ball of collective misery and she could lay all of it at Aizen’s bloody feet.

Given a slate and chalk, Soi Fon informed them that Barragan wasn’t supposed to be home that night. Nanao and Toshiro, comparing notes the next day as well as the paperwork from the 1st Division on their desks, discovered that Aizen had switched up the Espada’s patrols. That had not only freed up the Second to go home and Claim his unsuspecting and unprepared fraccion, but also put Starrk and Lilynette, and Hana in the path of one Vizard with a trap that needed stapling shut. The next time Yoruichi showed up in the yard, Karin was going to give the cat an earful about sending someone like that on an infiltration mission, if that’s what it was.

Aizen’s little last-minute decision, probably done on some ‘Royal Whim,’ had resulted in a chain of events that put at least two lives in jeopardy. Sometimes Karin swore that the son of a bitch thought the whole thing was great fun and did what he did for no other reason than he was bored. Karin, in all honesty, was getting tired of the havoc and pain Aizen’s little games created, mostly because she ended up having to try to fix things after he’d broken them for his own amusement. While she doubted he’d known the outcome of his actions ahead of time, she could still hate him for it.

She was also getting sick of living in a house where there was so much negative emotion clogging the proverbial drains. Karin, taking a mental headcount, couldn’t find one person under Starrk’s roof that wasn’t angry, upset, grief-stricken or just downright moody.

“I am sorry.” The apology came after ten minutes of Nanao alternately crying and trying to compose her features. “This is unbecoming.”

“It’s alright.” Karin told her. “Look, of…”

She trailed off and turned her gaze forward, in the direction of the front gate. She seemed to be staring blankly at the wall, but Nanao know better. Karin had made it a habit to keep tabs of who was close by, a task made easier with her ‘sight.’

“What is it?” her Taichou asked.

“It would seem that Hana just came through the gate,” Karin responded, giving the woman a reassuring smile.

Nanao made to move, no doubt to get to her daughter, but Karin tightened her grip, keeping Nanao on the couch. Soi Fon, having heard what happened, also put a hand on the other Shinigami’s shoulder, shaking her head as if to tell her ‘don’t get up.’

“Let her come to us,” Karin instructed Nanao, narrowing her eyes and putting on her ‘trust me’ face. Ironically, she’d learned that one from Nanao herself. “Confronting her just might make her run or clam up,” she added wisely.

Nanao sighed, abandoning her first instinct, which was to go to her daughter. Nevertheless, she still clenched her hands into fists in her lap, her knuckles white and trembling. Karin tracked Hana’s reiatsu as she moved thorough the Estate, heading towards the library, where Jushiro and Ajuga were busy practicing calligraphy.

Ajuga had suddenly shown less interest in the art, which set off all kinds of alarms in Karin’s mind and told her that it wasn’t just some passing moodiness. Of course, she’d had to take the same medicine she’d prescribed to Nanao as far as not pushing her own child for answers. Instead, Karin let her daughter be, giving Ajuga time to come to either herself or Grimmjow with her troubles when she was ready.

“It looks like she’s going to talk to Jushiro,” Karin announced, loosening the grip she had on Nanao. Her Taichou nodded and there was more than just a little relief in her voice.

“I hope she decides to stay. I was getting ready to go pound on the Third’s door if need be to see her.”

“I am sure Harribel would appreciate that,” Karin retorted dryly, rolled her eyes, but then paused and whipped her head around to look at Soi Fon, who looked back at her with no small amount of puzzlement at the abrupt change in the human woman’s demeanour.

OF COURSE!

Karin leaped up from the couch and smacked her forehead with the heel of her hand. “Why didn’t I see it before? I swear I’m such an _idiot_!”

Nanao and Soi Fon shared a confused look before turning their attention back to Karin.

“See what?” Nanao asked, since Soi Fon could not.

“Harribel! She only has one Claim to her name, Toshiro! If anyone would be a feminist, it would be her. She should be safe. You heard about what she did to the morons that went after Vindula-chan! Her fraccion absolutely adore Szayel’s little girl. If there’s one place you would be safe, it would be with her!”

Karin’s smacked her fist into her palm. “What more, if she and her pack accept you, your child will be even safer than with Tatsuki and Tesra.”

Both of the Shinigami on the couch stared up at her in shock, before Nanao laughed softly and shook her head and Soi Fon’s eyes finally had a little hope in them for a change.

“I’d never considered Hana’s mistress, but you’re right.”

“I can check with Toshiro and ask him to bring it up with her tomorrow. We still have a little time to work things out, to see if she’s even interested. If what Toshiro grouched about a time or two was true, taking a woman under her wing definitely won’t be a problem,” Karin continued. “She might even accept you just to spite Barragan. According to Ajuga-chan, there is no love lost between those two Espada.”

There was definitely hope in Soi Fon’s eyes now, and maybe a glimmer of revenge as well. Karin prayed that Harribel would feel the same way about getting a bit of payback. Ajuga hadn’t told her much, just that during one of their meetings Apache had brought up Harribel’s history with Barragan and she had learned that the old bastard had insisted the female Espada join him, threatening her at every turn unless she submitted. Harribel, accordingly, had spat in Barragan’s eye and told him ‘no’ as many times.

It was a possibility, which was more than she’d had to offer a pregnant Soi Fon earlier in the afternoon. Whether it was a real solution or not was debatable.

At this point, Karin took a deep breath and decided just to let things be for the rest of the day. Hana was home and speaking with someone, a resolution to Soi Fon’s predicament had presented itself in the form of Hana’s Espada and Jushiro reported that Byakuya had returned to work mark-free and thus far, seemed to have avoided Yammy’s notoriously horrific beatings. Maybe, whatever warning Aizen had beaten in the brute’s head had stuck.

 _Please, if you’re listening Kami, let me catch my breath before the next round,_ she prayed and dared to think that things might finally be looking up.


	32. Father and Daughter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time spent with Grimmjow and Ajuga

Something had his daughter’s nose out of joint. When something was bothering his daughter, it made Grimmjow a very unhappy father. With everything that had been going on, and his daughter’s inconvenient ability to avoid detection if she so chose, coupled with her tendency to sneak around to avoid talking if she didn’t want to talk, made cornering her damn near impossible. He was just about as proud of her as he was frustrated with her for her skills. Presently, frustration trumped pride.

His first concern was that some fucktard had finally tried to corner and Claim her, but he was positive that Ajuga would have told him about such an incident, as well as how she had dealt with any such unfortunate moron in full, gory detail. Whatever it was that had her tail in a knot had nothing to do with an unwanted Claim attempt. It also had nothing to do with the whole Starrk-killing-Hana’s-father thing either, as Ajuga had been acting peculiar since before that little bit of information came crawling out of the weeds.

As it was, he was running out of likely causes. Therefore, when he’d gotten up that morning, he’d decided to take a more direct approach, even if he had to nail his daughter’s tail to a tree to get her to sit still long enough to tell him why she had been acting so strangely. His usually cocky, vibrant child was acting subdued and that simply would not do. No fucking way would he allow her to turn into a depressed, gloomy, apathetic wanna-be mime like the Fourth Espada.

 _Maybe letting her train with Ulquiorra and his brat was a bad idea. Nihilistic fucker better not be rubbing off on her,_ he thought viciously.

His target appeared shortly, exiting the library and closing the door quietly behind her. Then he caught sight of Hana, coming from the other direction. The two girls would miss each other by a minute or two, but that was less important than the fact that Nanao’s kid was finally home, hopefully for good. He breathed a sigh of relief as the young Shinigami rounded the corner and entered the library. Her absence would be one less thing for Karin to mope about. When Karin moped, Grimmjow’s sex life suffered, and that really put him in a foul mood. Thanks to the trouble that landed on Starrk’s doorstep, it had been a week, _a whole bloody week_ , since they’d last had sex. While he couldn’t do much about the majority of it, getting Karin to leave off worrying about at least one kid was something he could handle.

In his mind, this kind of situation required an intervention. Then he could get back to shagging his mate, as was right and proper. First things first, however. Grimmjow kicked his mind out of the gutter before his libido could waylay him and called out to Ajuga before she could escape.

“Oi, brat!” he called and crooked a finger at her, indicating he wanted her to come to him.

“Papa,” she greeted him, her voice not nearly as happy as it should have been.

“C’mon. The larder is getting empty and we’ve got another mouth to feed.”

Ajuga nodded her head and fell into step beside him. Now he definitely knew something was wrong. Hunting had always elicited an enthusiastic response from her, but today she hardly seemed to care he was taking her out past the lines to pursue game for the table. When he found out who was behind Ajuga’s apathetic attitude, they would never find the body.

They were way out in the forest and in the middle of gutting the two deer they had taken down when he finally wrestled up the courage to broach the subject. Since tact was something he generally lacked, he didn’t even bother trying and went right for the kill.

“What’s been eating you?” he demanded.

“Huh?” Ajuga looked up from the deer she had eviscerated with her claws. He watched as she half-heartedly began pulling out and separating the internal organs into edible and inedible piles.

If she thought he was going to let her weasel her way out of this one, she had another thing coming.

“You’ve been moping around the Estate like someone stepped on your toes. Spill it, kid.”

Ajuga sighed and stared at the organ she currently held in her hand before taking a bite out of the heart. Settling down, Grimmjow copied his daughter, enjoying the taste of fresh blood on his lips as he tore into the heart from his own deer. He would give her a moment to collect her thoughts and answer before pressuring her again.

“You wouldn’t understand Papa,” Ajuga sighed dejectedly, her entire posture dropping in despair. She’d even tucker her tail between her legs and that sure as Hell would not do.

“Tell me anyway,” he ordered and threw a growl in for good measure.

“It’s just…” Ajuga paused and looked at the half-eaten heart in her hand while he finished his and licked his fingers, “I really don’t think you will understand,” Ajuga repeated, clearly not wanting to talk about whatever was bothering him.

“We ain’t leaving this forest until I know who I have to kill for putting you in such a bad mood,” he growled dangerously. If he had to, he’d pull rank.

Ajuga let out another, heavier sigh and finally turned blue eyes, so similar to his own and yet not, his way.

“It’s Bya-san, Papa. Yammy broke him,” she replied.

It took him a moment to comprehend what she had said and to recall who the Hell ‘Bya-san’ was.

“I mean, I understand that Yammy has a right to him since he won and Claimed him, but I don’t see the point in hurting someone so much weaker than you. Not even Nnoitra treats Rangiku like that. Hell, Barragan,” she spat the repellent codger’s name in the same way she would describe and open sewer, “treats Yumi-san better. He’s a close second though.”

Grimmjow was well aware of how some of his fellow Arrancar treated their pets, and it disgusted him too. He would never stoop that low. Even if he had managed to get Kurosaki in such a position, he would have never treat Karin’s brother the way Yammy handled Byakuya or the way that Barragan behaved towards Ggio, if the rumour mill had the story right. Grimmjow was a creature that prided himself on having some standards and he wouldn’t have put his rival through such things, even when their enmity had burned furnace-hot. The two higher-ranked Espada were utterly revolting in how they dealt with their underlings. Only a weak and pathetic creature continually beat down a defeated opponent, not to mention used their Claims to force them to have sex since they couldn’t get any tail on their own merits.

If Yammy and Barragan had any such ‘merits,’ it was news to him. He had no idea why the little Arrancar had thrown his lot in with the old fuck in the first place, but power had a tendency to trump common sense in some cases.

 _Pot, kettle,_ his conscience scoffed at him, forcing him to recall that he had originally procured sex from Karin in exchange for keeping her sister safe. He told his conscience to shut up and reminded it that Karin had approached him of her own free will. If she had ever wanted to break their deal he would have let her, and probably not even gone after her sister again. Who would want a girl like Yuzu after tasting someone like Karin? It was like comparing a lone cream puff to a hearty steak dinner, grilled rare and with plenty of dessert.

Grimmjow put those thoughts aside for the moment because right now, Ajuga needed his attention. Her tricky human heritage was rearing its head and confusing the hell out of her. He didn’t begrudge his daughter’s human side. If anything, he admitted that it probably made Ajuga more powerful in many ways, such as her creativity and her sneakiness. In other ways, it made her want to seek things like justice and fairness where those concepts just didn’t apply, causing a lot of unnecessary inner drama.

“The strong do what they will to the weak,” Grimmjow started, and then held up one finger. “But only a craven weakling would perpetually stomp on something that can’t fight back.” He added the last part before Ajuga could protest.

“I know that Papa, but it doesn’t make it any easier.”

She had unshed tears sparkling in her eyes now, and she wasn’t even looking at her meal anymore.

“Before, there was at least a bit of life in Bya-san's eyes, and I know he enjoyed hanging out with me and teaching me things. We had lots of fun together, but now he doesn’t even want to see me anymore. He won’t even acknowledge me.”

Ajuga had never lost a friend before, not even to battle. Of course, her list of friends was relatively small, in no small part due to her hybrid nature. The need to belong was a very human emotion, something she had gained from her mother. Then again, he’d probably contributed a little as well. Grimmjow had seen how much more powerful a pack was, compared to an individual and that realization made him almost regret the loss of his fraccion all those years ago. Well, not all of them maybe, as Di Roy had been a few key ingredients short of a yakisoba plate, but there were definitely times he missed having some of ‘the boys’ at his back.

 _Bloody woman has corrupted me,_ he groused inwardly, but it didn’t upset him that much. The changes, he reluctantly acknowledged, had been for the better.

“I just wish there was something I could do,” Ajuga scowled, tossing the half-eaten heart away. Grimmjow reached out and snagged it before it could hit the ground and finished the delicacy. His child got to her feet and paced furiously, her tail lashing back and forth in her frustration, her kill completely forgotten.

Now she was wasting food. This had to stop, he decided.

“Even if I was strong enough to take on Yammy, _Aizen_ …” she spat the name, “would step in anyway, since ‘any interference would be considered interfering with a Claim,’ and you know what he does to those that do that. Chaos and all that other bullshit he spouts out his ass…”

She half snarled, half-sneered this last bit and Grimmjow looked at her sharply.

 _This_ was new.

“Ajuga, where did all this hatred for Aizen come from?” he asked cautiously.

He loathed Aizen. Oh, how he loathed the lying, masochistic motherfucker, but _he_ had never taught his girl to mimic his disdain for the guy. In addition, while he suspected that Ajuga had noticed her parents’ abhorrence for their ruler, the venom he heard in her words was far too strong to be something she’d merely obtained from listening to them speaking privately.

A thought occurred to him and he suddenly felt a cold knot in his stomach, making the one-and-a-half hearts he’d just eaten sit uneasily.

If he found out Aizen did anything to his daughter that he didn’t know about…

“He hurt Szay, several times!” she snapped, seething now.

“How, and what, do you know about that?”

They, meaning him, Karin, Nemu and of late, the surly redhead Szayel had somehow turned into a nanny, had always made sure Ajuga, and the other children, were scarce after one of Aizen’s little ‘play’ sessions with Szayel. If Aizen had forced Ajuga to witness any of the atrocities he’d committed with the scientist the Seventh would have informed them about it. Unless, of course, Szayel hadn’t known she’d been there. Aizen’s illusions were powerful and Ajuga herself could remain hidden in ways only Karin had been able to perceive.

Thankfully, when he heard his daughter’s next words, he deduced that that was not the case. Just thinking about such a thing gave Grimmjow the heaves and he’d worked too hard to bring down their meal to lose his lunch now.

“I can smell his blood on Mama,” she reluctantly told him, then hesitantly added, “as well as… other things.”

Of course, Ajuga would recognize the scent of cum. He hardly led a celibate life with Karin. When Aizen usually finished with Szayel, he left the Espada caked with both substances. Grimmjow ought not to have been surprised that some of the filth would attach itself to Karin when she tended to her pet’s wounds. It also explained Ajuga’s hatred. Ajuga was close to Szayel; if she knew about and understood what Aizen inflicted on the other Espada it would also explain her complete lack of respect for their ‘ruler’. He considered how ticked she was at Yammy for doing the same thing, far more frequently and perhaps even more violently, to the Kuchiki heir.

“Fair enough,” he conceded and stuffed down the urge to lecture her. Instead, he sat back and waited for her to go on.

“And he hurts others too, even though they never did anything wrong!” she exclaimed.

“Like whom?” he grilled her, wanting some solid details now. He had his suspicions, but he wanted to hear what evidence she had.

Ajuga hesitated, and he knew right then and there that she had been doing things that would upset her mother. She was still walking back and forth across the forest floor, wearing a path though the leaf litter to the bare earth below it.

“Ajuga…” he said warningly.

“It was a while ago.”

“How long ago is ‘a while ago?’” he pressed.

“Five years.”

Ajuga let out a sigh and stopped moving, sitting down on a log and staring down at her bloodstained hands before bringing her fingers to her mouth to lick them clean. Grimmjow gave her a moment to gather her thoughts. He had a feeling this was going to be good, and another, stronger feeling that he was going to have to either a) discipline his daughter for the indiscretion she had committed and/or b) make certain Karin never learned about it while c) being proud of whatever cunning thing his child had done. He hoped it would be the second option and would deal with the first if it were an issue. The third was a given.

“After I got to see Unohana-san’s gardens when Aizen summoned us, I, sort of, kept going back to see them, and to visit Gin-san. I startled Gin-san one day while he was on the ladder in Unohana-san’s bathroom and he accidentally dropped the watering can he was using and it broke. Then he fell into the bath.”

“Wait a second,” he interrupted his daughter’s confession, gaping at her, “you have been visiting Gin, at Aizen’s Palace?”

Now she looked a little nervous, eyes darting back and forth and not meeting his.

“Yeah, I have been sneaking in for years now, smuggling him food on occasion and sometimes helping him with his chores.”

Grimmjow’s brain actually froze for a second, stuck in ‘astonished’ mode with the wheels spinning.

 _Holy goat shit on a flaming stick!_ was the first thing that ran through his head when his brain got some traction and started up again.

He held back a laugh, but just barely. A snort did manage to get past his lips, though. His little girl had been snooping around behind Aizen’s back and ‘His Nibs’ hadn’t even noticed! _His_ daughter was pulling a fast one on ‘Kami-sama’ himself and getting away with it! Aizen ‘I see everything under the sun’ Sousuke had absolutely no clue about it either. This was priceless, an act of defiance that made his heart swell to near bursting with delight.

This, most definitely, was on the ‘do not let Karin find out’ list.

Ajuga looked at him for a moment before finishing her story, and finishing cleaning her fingers.

“Aizen came in shortly after he fell and punished him for something as stupid as a wet floor in a bathroom and a few shards he was in the middle of cleaning up anyway.”

Ajuga growled, the menace in it unmistakable. With blood still on her lips from the half-eaten heart, she looked positively feral. It was a good thing she was his daughter, because looking the way she did now would have half the male Arrancar population chasing after her tail. The other, probably smarter half would be running like frightened rabbits. He forced those thoughts aside and quickly placed this entire talk into a new category, one he mentally labelled as ‘ ** _never_** let Karin suspect even a hint of this, ever!’

Unfortunately, _he_ could do little to assist his daughter with her dilemma. Things worked this way under Aizen’s rule and that was that. Even though Grimmjow in theory could kill Yammy, if he did so quickly and before the disgusting Espada could enter his Resurrección, Ajuga was right about Aizen’s rule regarding interference. With the war going on, Aizen would be incredibly displeased at any infighting, even though it hadn’t bothered him in the past. The incident involving Nnoitra and the then-Third Espada came to mind. Aizen hadn’t even batted and eyelash in that case. He’d just gone out and made himself a new Third.

He and Karin could realistically do nothing for Byakuya. Grimmjow was ‘technically’ using his second Claim on Szayel. With Soi Fon removed from the Second’s household, the abused noble could even end up serving Barragan if Yammy died, and that was hardly an upgrade. The only way he could take Byakuya in would be if Szayel gave up his rank as Espada and chose to become a fraccion, as Ggio had once been. That would definitely not happen, considering Szayel’s pride and his need to remain an adult courtesy of Karin’s surreptitious Claim.

The entire tangled mess just gave him a headache at times.

“I’m whining…” Ajuga said suddenly and sighed unhappily. “There’s obviously only one solution to this problem.”

She stood up and stretched, not pleased, but no longer miserable.

“And that would be?” he prompted, even though he suspected he knew the answer she was going to give him. Ajuga was very much his daughter, and Grimmjow, had he been in her position, would have chosen a particular course of action over any others. She would probably come up with the same conclusion he already had.

“First, I need to get stronger,” she answered with a shrug and a frown, looking at her claws. “Stronger than Yammy. If I can kill him, then I gain possession of everything he owns, right?”

She looked up at him, as if asking for confirmation.

“That’s right,” he agreed. “But remember, with the war going on, Aizen is denying us the right to fight and kill each other.”

His daughter looked like she was chewing on that and then snorted.

“I know. I still need to get stronger too and fighting will help make me stronger. Until then, I will just have to keep pushing, to let Bya-san know he isn’t alone and he’s stronger than this. I will keep showing up and I will tie him down and **make** him spend time with me if it kills me,” she vowed.

Ajuga had calmed down and now that she’d devised a plan of action, he decided that he wasn’t going to poke more holes in it. As long as she didn’t do something stupid, he didn’t care what motivated her and pulled her out of her slump.

She turned back to the deer she had been gutting and finished the task of field dressing it for travel. Now that he’d managed to get her to talk about the problem, Grimmjow dealt with his own kill. They worked in silence but he could tell that her mind was elsewhere, whirling with plans. His brain, on the other hand, was mulling over the knowledge that his little girl had been making a monkey out of Aizen for the last half-decade, sneaking into and out of the Palace with only Aizen’s whipping boy being the wiser. He found it a pity that he couldn’t share that news with Karin because it was fucking hysterical.

Plus, he wanted to keep his skin intact. Grimmjow knew she’d use him for a throw rug in the sitting room if she ever found out about this… or if she ever found he’d known about it and didn’t tell her.

He decided to take a page from his daughter’s playbook and keep it a secret for now.

 _That’s my girl,_ he thought proudly. _Yammy won’t know what hit him._


	33. Home and Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hana has a heart to heart with Jushiro and Starrk.

_Funny. I never thought I’d feel intimidated just walking up to the front gate._

The Ukitake Estate had always been ‘home,’ it felt like ‘home’ and while she’d understood, intellectually, the circumstances in which she’d lived, up until earlier in the week, she’d never associated it with any sense of loss. She stood, her hand on the wooden gate, and tried to force her feet to move.

They didn’t want to budge.

Another battle had broken out the afternoon her Taichou had given her his input and that forced her to set aside the accounting and go blast locusts with Kido for a few hours, putting a dent in her resolve to return home that evening. Instead, she finished the accounting. Thankfully, she hadn’t had to hunt down any receipts. With the battles coming nearly every other day, no one had enough time to go out and purchase supplies from the markets. The regular troops in the 3rd Division were running on backup supplies now and Toshiro had personally looked at the depleted stores with a ‘what fresh Hell is this?’ expression on his face when she’d brought it to his attention.

Hana suspected the quartermaster was going to get an earful this evening and she was very grateful not to be in the other Shinigami’s sandals. Instead, it gave her an additional night to think about things, about the description she’d heard of a man she’d never met and would never get to meet.

What bothered her wasn’t the long list of ‘character flaws,’ as Hitsugaya-Taichou called them, as much as the fact that the flaws, when taken together, had a dreadfully familiar feel to them.

 _Lazy, prone to naps, not much on formality, little care for authority or uptight-seeming orders, likely to sleep through a boring meeting, nagged by a smaller, younger female subordinate into doing what had to be done… No, I don’t know of anyone who meets that description,_ she thought sarcastically.

The only things that didn’t seem to match up were the drinking and the tomcatting around, but she’d never thought of Starrk in those terms, just as she’d tried very hard not to dwell on the fact that he had an active Claim on ‘take-ji. Hana didn’t think her Taichou was lying when he’d described some of her late father’s mannerisms, but she hadn’t heard any malice in his voice as he’d related his impression of the man either.

On the other hand, she’d told Hitsugaya-Taichou she’d wanted to hear the truth. At least in this case, he’d given her the option of hearing it.

He was also correct in that the two people who would be able to give her a better picture were on the other side of this gate and that there was a fine line between taking one’s time to think about things and blatant procrastination.

Hana took a couple of breaths, screwed up her courage and pushed the gate open. No one had latched it and once inside, she could feel her mother’s reiatsu, as well as Karin’s, Ajuga’s, Grimmjow’s, ‘take-ji’s… and Starrk’s. There was someone else there as well, but she didn’t immediately recognize him or her. Closing the gate carefully, she paused, trying to decide what to do.

If her mother was with Karin and a stranger in the sitting area, she didn’t want to disturb whatever might be going on. Instead, she decided to go to ‘take-ji. He wasn’t with Starrk, so she wouldn’t have to confront the First right off the bat and she could leave off asking her mother any questions, since the sort of information about her father her mother might possess probably wasn’t something to discuss with others present. Ajuga was with him, but she could probably count on her friend to find something else to do and give them some space.

‘Take-ji it was, then. Feeling a little more composed now that she had a plan in place, she walked purposefully towards her adoptive uncle’s suite of rooms, mentally compiling the questions she wanted to ask him. By the time that she reached the library where he sometimes sat in the light from the south-facing windows to read, Hana had a slew of things she wanted to know.

The second she walked into the room, however, all of them fled and she found herself engulfed in a hug.

He smelled like the herbs Ajuga used in his tea, peppermint candies and the bags of sandalwood and cedar chips that kept the moths out of the linen closets of the Estate. The other girl was nowhere in sight, though she did see that two calligraphy sets were out and a few pieces of paper lay here and there on the low table that served the room. It looked as if they’d just wrapped up a lettering session. She felt tears threaten when he threw his arms around her. His lungs, thankfully, sounded clear and even if Hana had been gone, Ajuga had probably pestered him to drink his medicine in her absence.

“Hana-chan… I’m so glad you’re home.”

Ukitake Jushiro, sounding as if the weight of the world had just been lifted from his shoulders, muttered this against the top of her head and she could only nod and step back, holding him at arm’s length to give him a more critical ‘once-over’ while she thrust any and all thoughts of crying away. Thankfully, there didn’t seem to be anything amiss, though he did seem as tired as the rest of them.

“Thanks, ‘take-ji.”

A hand reached up to smooth her hair, the same way he’d done when she was much younger and before she could let it affect her, she reached up and clasped it in both of hers, plastering what she hoped looked like a serious expression on her face. Then she realized there was something solid trapped between her hand and his.

When she pulled it away from his she found a yellow and red swirled lollipop, the stick wedged her fingers.

“There was a time when all I had to do to make you smile was hand you one of these.”

Ukitake said this with a hint of wistfulness. Keeping her eyes on the candy she sadly replied, “I’m not five years old anymore.”

His next words, uttered with a hint of resignation, told her he’d read her mood and her expression correctly.

“I suppose it’s high time we had a talk, isn’t it?

Well, it had been almost a week and he and her mother would have had some time to figure out how to approach the topic, even if it was horribly belated, in Hana’s opinion.

“Yeah. I spoke with Hitsugaya-Taichou and he told me a few things, but he also said that you and mother would be better sources of information,” she admitted. Her ‘take-ji nodded and then indicated that she should pull up a cushion into the sunbeam and sit. He finished putting his calligraphy set away and set it next to Ajuga’s already reassembled one.

“True. Your mother and I first heard about this from Toshiro, and later, from Starrk and Lilynette. You can guess who gave us a more complete story, but I’d like to hear it from you.”

For the second time that week, Hana related the events, including every nasty thing Sarugaki Hiyori screamed at her, before Shihoin Yoruichi thankfully silenced her and fled. Jushiro paled at some of the more colorful language, but listened without comment until she got the part where Hana had fled to the Third’s household.

“I see. Yes, that makes a little more sense now. Hana, before I say anything else, know that whatever Sarugaki said was the result of the kind of pain that only losing almost everything and everyone one cares about can create. I knew her, long ago and while she’d developed the acid tongue that you heard by that point in time, she hadn’t become the bitter, hateful little thing you just described. She has every reason to hate Aizen… maybe more reason than anyone else living. Nevertheless, she had no reason to attack _you_ thusly.”

“That doesn’t mean that what she said wasn’t true,” Hana countered.

“Yes and no. We… gods, Hana-chan, we _never_ meant for you to find out this way! We’d always intended to tell you the truth, when you were older, when we thought you’d be mature enough to understand… and please, don’t blame your mother about the delay in doing so. When you were much younger, she told me she planned to tell you what happened when or if you entered the Shinōreijutsuin. However, we didn’t think you’d enter at such a young age and…well… _I_ asked her to wait, to not let the knowledge burden you while you were trying to study.”

He breathed deeply and cast his eyes towards the ceiling, as if searching for the proper words.

“We old folks never like to think that the children around us are growing up, until the day comes when we can’t deny that they’re no longer children at all. I suppose we thought we still had some time to break things to you and it turns out, that by putting it off, we only made things worse.”

“Hitsugaya-Taichou said something similar, about you possibly waiting until I was older. I…I think I get why you did it. So did Harribel-sama. She and Hitsugaya-Taichou covered for me, by the way. About the intruders and all.”

“Thank goodness! Starrk told us he didn’t feel like filling anything out, but I know he didn’t want to bring you into it and I’m glad the Third didn’t feel the need to report it either.”

If anything, he seemed even more relieved than when she’d walked into the library and Hana knew she was right in being concerned about not sounding the alarm.

“Starrk let them go because he was too busy trying to talk to me. I didn’t know if he was lying when he said that he fulfilled my father’s last request. I wish I knew exactly what happened. I don’t think…”

Ukitake stopped her with a hand on her forearm.

“Hana… Hana… Starrk was telling the truth. I’m not sure why Shunsui asked the ones who defeated him to look after us, but he did and I’m grateful, more for your mother’s sake, and yours, than for myself. He’s never gone back on his word to your father either. If I know one thing, it’s that neither he, nor Lilynette have ever hurt any of us.”

“Why? I mean, he… he… to you…” and here Hana looked away, unable to finish. Ukitake suddenly understood what she was talking about, because he turned a few shades pinker himself and squirmed on his cushion.

“Hana, he’s never simply ‘taken’ me, never forced me. He’s always asked if I wanted to continue the Claiming process. He’s never been brutal with me either.”

“But, it’s not a real choice! You’ll be executed if you don’t!”

“Maybe, or I could end up with a ‘master’ far worse than Starrk. The Third would be the best chance I’d have, _if_ she’d have me. Hana, I know that this is hard for you to believe, but given the circumstances, _this_ was the best possible outcome after we lost the Winter War. Your mother and I have had a long time to come to terms with what happened to your father, to deal with the grief. It’s terribly unfair, in no small part because I think your father and Starrk would have gotten on like a house on fire if they’d had a chance to get to know one another. Before you say anything,” he added, putting his fingers on her lips to silence any protests she might make, “yes, I would have begged Starrk for the same protections, for my best friend, his lover and their unborn child. Sometimes I wonder if it might have better if I had been the one who died…”

“‛take-ji, no!” Hana gasped and the hand on her forearm reached to take hers. He squeezed her fingers with his own, warm and reassuring.

“…if only so that you might have known your father, and that he might have known you. That you’ll never meet pains me, because he would have been so very proud of the lovely young woman you’ve become.”

Hana’s face crumpled at that and despite her vows not to cry any more about it, she found ‘take-ji’s arms around her, his hands gently smoothing her hair and rocking her gently, as if she _was_ five again and had just woken from a bad dream.

“In many ways, Starrk is very much like your father, especially when it comes to games. I’d give anything to watch a shoji match between those two. Shunsui was a much better player than I am and a far better strategist than I will ever be. I think he learned the patience for it from courting your mother for so long.”

Sniffling, Hana looked up at him, to find him smiling and looking off into the distance, as if he were imagining such a game.

“I thought… I thought he was supposed to have a roving eye or something like that.”

Ukitake laughed quietly.

“Oh, he appreciated the ladies, but once your mother went to work for him, he limited his attention to other women to flirting. He’d been devastated by the loss of his previous Fukutaichou and your mother, when she took up her predecessor’s position, was so no-nonsense, so crisp and refused to let him hole up in his office and drink himself into ruin.”

“Oh, I thought he drank a lot. At least, that’s what I heard.”

“Hmm, well, he had a high tolerance for sake, and I’m sure whatever it was that Toshiro told you was at least partly accurate in that regard. He was quite the connoisseur of women and wine. Nevertheless, I will tell you this much: he had to work to get your mother. All his usual charm and tricks and flattery and so on failed where she was concerned. I believe that love hit him like a bolt from the blue and it took him forever to figure out the right combination of things to make his intentions towards your mother clear to her. I also think, in the end, he settled on a war of attrition and just wore down all of her carefully constructed defences against him.”

“Defences?”

“Yes, defences. They involved a strategically wielded heavy tome and mountains of paperwork. They were nigh insurmountable, especially the clipboard, particularly when she applied it to the back of his head. Your father had a hard time navigating such rough terrain.”

Ukitake said this in such a teasing manner that Hana couldn’t help but smile and chuckle herself, even as she wiped away the stray tears from her eyes with the sleeve of her uniform. It was the first laugh she’d had in a week. The older man beamed at her when he heard it and drew her back in for another hug.

“Yes, your father fell hard for Ise Nanao. I’ve only seen one person fall harder for someone,” he said, resting his chin on top of her head. Pulling back, Hana looked up at him, puzzled.

“Who? Ajuga’s parents?”

“Not quite. I’m referring to Starrk-san, on the day you were born.”

Her adoptive uncle brushed her hair back from her face as she stared up at him, her expression going from ‘confused’ to ‘stunned.’

“He’s been moping around the Estate like a kicked dog for the last week. Lilynette looks utterly miserable most of the time and whatever it was you said to them might have hit deeper than either of them truly deserves. Of all the Espada, I’ve never met one who conducted themselves with more honour than Starrk, and forgive me, but that includes your mistress. He’s done his best to do right by me, your mother and believe it or not, you. Sometimes, I think, he’s terrified that he’ll lose us for some reason and after this week, I’m more than sure of it.”

“‘take-ji… I don’t know…”

“If it helps you, I want you to understand this: I watched the battle between them before I blacked out. What struck me, before I lost consciousness, was just how unhappy the First seemed to be, how much he didn’t want to be there in the first place.”

Hana frowned and rested her forehead against his shoulder while he patted her back and she considered this latest revelation.

Starrk, while facing down the two intruders nearly a week ago, hadn’t seemed too keen on fighting then either. In fact, he’d done more evading than anything else, unless Lilynette’s taunts counted as an attack. If he’d wanted, Starrk could have obliterated both women and yet all he’d done was get out of the way of Hiyori’s blows and Ceros. Of course, there was a substantial reward for those two, so maybe he’d been trying to bring them in alive. Then she bit her lip, teeth coming down on a section that had grown purple over the last six days.

The only way to find out was to pluck up her courage and talk to Starrk.

“He’s in the South garden, napping.”

Someday, Hana told herself, she would have to discover how Ukitake seemed to know what she was thinking. Maybe age and experience bestowed some secret mind-reading power, the same way that childbirth had endowed both her mother and Karin with the ability to detect all lies. Then she remembered what she’d sensed when she’d walked through the gate.

“Who else is here? Mother and Karin are home, but who is with them?”

In a manner of seconds, ‘take-ji went from kindly uncle to worried Taichou and the shift put her immediately on guard. His subsequent explanation made her eyes go wide with horror and she clapped her hand over her mouth, feeling a little sick. As angry as she’d been with Starrk, she couldn’t see either half of the First doing to her mother what Barragan had done to Soi Fon, his fraccion and their unborn baby.

“The First is… very put out with the Second right now. So is Grimmjow, only he’s a bit more vocal and, er… destructive about things. Soi Fon is staying with us until we can figure something out. The Claim is still on her, so we’ve some time until it falls off.”

Hana’s mind leapt ahead as she squeezed Ukitake’s hand again, since he didn’t look very pleased about what the Second Espada had done either. Then another thought hit her and she tensed.

 _Kami,_ _Harribel-sama is going to hit the roof when she hears about this, if she hasn’t already!_

“Hana?”

She looked up at Ukitake and shook her head. She could do little about the situation as it stood and she needed to deal with her larger problem before she could put her mind to work on anything else.

“I need to talk to Starrk I guess. I can’t wait on it any longer.”

He patted her on the shoulder and a half-smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“Are you home for good, Hana-chan? I know Ajuga’s been a bit ‘off’ since you left as well.”

The girl sighed. Her sudden departure had even affected her best friend.

“I… I’ll let you know once I’m done speaking with the First.”

It was the best she could offer him, and he nodded. With that, she rose, bowed, and exited the library, still holding the lollipop he had given her. Hana made her way through the maze that was the Ukitake Estate, until she reached the large courtyard that bordered the southern wall of the compound. The spot was warm in winter and downright hot in summer, which was why a carefully groomed and raked Zen garden comprised most of the landscaping.

Surprisingly, Lilynette had been the one to decree that this was ‘her’ spot and had maintained the configuration of white sand and black rock for as long as Hana could remember. She’d asked about the garden once and Lilinette had responded that if anyone knew what sand and rocks were supposed to look like, it was she. The little Arrancar had done a good job, so much so that Ukitake declared that even when his sisters had been here, the southern ‘garden’ had never looked as good. Lilinette danced around the house for weeks afterward in the wake of ‘take-ji’s praise.

Hana could feel his reiatsu long before she saw him, lying on his back with one arm curled behind him as a pillow and the forearm of the other draped over his eyes. He sprawled out on the wooden porch that provided a place to contemplate the Zen arrangement and the artfully clipped junipers along the wall that separated the Estate from the rest of the 1st District. Starrk looked rumpled and forlorn and Hana thought he could be mistaken for a mugging victim, if he’d appeared like this in any of the higher-numbered Rukongai Districts’ alleys.

_“I don’t think he ever met a horizontal surface he didn’t try to use for napping purposes…”_

Hitsugaya-Taichou’s words floated up to her from wherever she’d stored their conversation and Hana took a moment before she ventured out on to the porch. Keeping a wary eye on him, she approached in much the same way she had when she was six and Lilinette had handed her a bucket of ice water and told her to ‘go make Starrk’s day’ by ‘cooling him off.’ By all rights, he should have skinned her.

He hadn’t, of course, but he did move much faster than she’d ever seen any living creature move before, straight up, as if the cold water had somehow levitated him at the speed of sound. The yowl he’d let out had been epic.

When she got roughly four feet away, he shifted on the hard surface of the porch and let out a sigh.

“Hana-chan.”

“Starrk-san” Hana replied, adding the honorific. She stood there for a few minutes, unsure if by saying her name he was acknowledging her or if he wanted to talk to her, then decided that sitting down might be easier than waiting for anything else. She took a seat on the porch, her back braced against the overhang’s thick wooden supports, her feet drawn up beneath her. For a while, the only sound was the rush of the breeze whispering through the needles on the evergreen trees and some occasional birdsong.

“Early spring this year,” he noted, not stirring.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“It’s not supposed to be this warm this soon. Things are off-kilter.”

“The lunar New Year started a week ago, with the full moon, and it’s ‘spring’ after that,” she pointed out. He was right, however. Late January shouldn’t have temperatures this high. It ought to be colder and to Hana, it was just another sign of how badly Aizen’s meddling had disrupted the Realms. Now the very seasons were out of tune with the calendar. At this rate, it would be snowing in August.

“I don’t mind the sun. Had my fill of the moon. ‘s all we had in Hueco Mundo. That and sand and rocks. Like this, but less fancy.”

She’d wanted to talk about her father, about Starrk’s role in his demise, why he’d hidden the fact he’d been the one to destroy her family before it ever had a chance to really take shape by killing Kyoraku Shunsui in battle. She’d had a week to mull over things in her mind, had talked to the Third, to her Taichou, to Ukitake and tried to figure out what to do about something over which she’d had absolutely no control.

Intellectually, she knew that those who went to war faced the possibility of death. She’d seen her Taichou fill out enough death notices after each skirmish with the Swarm, saw the empty places left in the ranks where familiar faces should have been. She faced the possibility herself, every time she went out with her assigned squad to kill as many of the attackers as she could.

However, the Swarm didn’t take ‘war prizes.’ They simply killed and moved on. Maybe what stuck in her craw the most wasn’t that her father had fallen to a superior foe, but that Starrk seemed to have done his damnedest to replace the man he’d killed. To Hana, all of the things that should have been her father’s, such as his best friend, his lover and potential wife, even his child had gone to Starrk as the spoils.

Worse, she’d been _happy_ with Starrk sitting in as a father figure, sharing the space with ‘take-ji. She’d been equally happy with Lilynette as a sister, forming a sorority of sorts with Ajuga-chan. She hadn’t known any better and, perhaps the most regretful part of it was that now she couldn’t go back to the way things had been.

Hana had wanted to talk about all of these things and now that she was in Starrk’s presence, facing him, the words she wanted to say wouldn’t come and her mouth didn’t seem to want to spew out the angry invectives that she wanted to throw at him.

Instead, she asked, “What was Hueco Mundo like?”

Starrk slowly moved the arm across his eyes and opened them, his blue-gray gaze not straying her way, but remaining on the underside of the porch roof.

“Cold. Desolate. Occasionally windy. Sand and rocks, dead trees that weren’t really trees and not much else,” he replied quietly. “And bones. There were always lots of bones.”

She shivered despite the warmth of the sun. It sounded terrible, but she also doubted that whatever forces created it meant it to be a pleasant sort of place.

“Las Noches was better, I guess. There were Arrancar there who could withstand being around our power, and not wither into dust just by coming close enough to talk. Aizen had even created some sunshine under that dome of his, while he was there.”

“How did he do that?”

“I dunno. Doesn’t really matter now. It wasn’t a real sun anyway, just another illusion of Aizen’s, like everything else he promised.”

Hana blinked and looked down at the scruffy Espada prostrate on the boards of the porch, a morose expression seeping into his eyes. Seeing it, the conversation she’d had with her Taichou sprang to mind, especially the part she wasn’t supposed to talk about with Harribel:

_“…he’s made some very manipulative promises...”_

“What… what did he promise?”

“I envied the weak. They were free to choose friends, allies, fraccion, enemies and mates. All we had was one another, two parts of what was once one. Even separating couldn’t keep us from destroying any who came near. Aizen said he could give us companions who wouldn’t break so easily… if we agreed to follow him.”

Hana sat, dumbfounded, as Starrk’s motives became horribly clear to her.

_Did he just say that they had joined up because they were lonely?_

“He used that crystal of his to dampen us down, so the lower Numeros wouldn’t be killed, let us live in Las Noches, with cushions for sleeping and others to talk to… but it wasn’t a real pack. Too much jockeying for position and Aizen’s favour and backstabbing. It’s still that way, sort of.”

The girl had to work very hard at not gaping.

_Oh, Kami! Aizen took power away from them? They were stronger than this before Aizen touched them?_

While Hana was aware that Ukitake’s family had retreated deep into the countryside in order to keep Starrk’s reiatsu from poisoning his less powerful younger siblings, she’d had no idea that the Espada’s current strength had been _reduced_ rather than enhanced by the Hougyoku.

Somehow, when he’d said ‘lower Numeros,’ she got the impression that he didn’t necessarily mean those with three digits as their rank… or even two.

What had he and Lilynette been like, before that? Arrancar thrived on power, sought it out, took it how and when they could. It seemed so out of place for a Hollow of any grade to give any sort of potency away deliberately. Unless… he had little use for power in the first place, being awash with it.

“Then we went to war in the Living World, and we faced down your father’s pack.”

It took a second for her to translate that, and she realized that he meant her father and ‘take-ji, as well as the two others that had taken the First on in a bid to stop Aizen from advancing to the real Karakura, secreted in the Soul Society. She’d spent enough time around Harribel and her fraccion to know that the four women considered themselves a tight unit, with her Taichou as an addendum of sorts. Did that mean that Starrk had perceived the clash as a fight between two packs of Hollows? She doubted he would have any other reference to go by, save what Aizen might have instilled in them as far as organization went.

“They were powerful. Very powerful. Your father almost took out Lilynette, when she did something stupid and got in the way of one of his strikes. I had to go into my Resurrección, to merge with her and save her. The others went at us at that point. I had to go all out on them before your father attacked again.”

Hana reached up and hugged her knees to her chest as he described, briefly, the encounter that had taken her father’s life. His eyes stayed on the porch’s ceiling while he spoke, regret and melancholy lacing his voice.

“After the Ceros cleared, he tried again. By then, I’d figured out the rules of the game his Zanpakuto imposed when he pulled it out and I got lucky with the color I named. Nothing more than that. He fought fair and fought well. The wound I gave him was fatal though and Aizen’s command came too late. Otherwise…”

“…you’d have enslaved him too?”

The Espada closed his eyes and his chest heaved, a low, depressed noise escaping his lips.

“Kept asking him why he was fighting so hard. It wasn’t just because he wanted to protect his friend, or…” here he lifted a hand and made an encompassing gesture, “this place. After we won, I went to find your mother, to make good on the promise to protect a fallen Alpha’s mate and realized she was carrying his cub. That’s why he wouldn’t put his weapons down, no matter how many times we told him that Aizen’s plans were better than your Soutaichou’s, and that the one they hoped would save them wasn’t coming.”

It was the most she’d ever heard him say in one sitting.

“By our laws, we were entitled to his pack, to take up where he left off and at least keep them safe. Aizen was the one to come up with the whole bit about keeping those with Taichou strength Claimed. Guess he thought that we’d all be okay with it.”

“So you took my father’s place?”

“I took his responsibilities, as a proper pack leader would. I made sure to treat his friend well, even if Aizen made me Claim him. I made sure no one else would come sniffing around your mother, even if she doesn’t have the kind of reiatsu that would threaten Aizen… and once his cub was born, I vowed that nothing would ever hurt her. Not one of the Numeros, not one of the Espada, not even Aizen. No one was going to hurt the pack we’d finally gained.”

“And yet,” Hana said quietly, though she couldn’t keep some of the resentment out of her voice. “‘take-ji still only has one eye.”

“Thanks to that prick!”

Suddenly a new, if familiar, voice cut into the conversation and Hana turned to see Lilynette standing about ten feet away, the bamboo rake she usually used for the sand in the garden balanced across her small shoulders. If Starrk looked like a depressed dog shut out in the rain overnight, the First’s other half looked sullen and angry, as if she might bite the next thing that came near. Still, Hana could see a small flicker of hope in Lilynette’s eyes as she took in the fact that Hana was home after a week away.

“Aizen’s stepping over all kinds of lines with us. He had no right to touch what’s ours! Jushiro’s part of our pack and what kind of idiot blinds a fighter in the middle of a freakin’ war for makin’ a good suggestion, for fuck’s sake?”

“Lilynette… the walls could have ears. Next punishment won’t be an extra patrol.”

Starrk tossed the weary sounding warning off to the small female, who ‘hmph’ed’ and sat down abruptly. Her outburst had been a little loud for comfort and as much as Hana actually agreed with Lilynette about the monster on the throne, it was dangerous to say something like that this close to the Estate’s boundaries.

“Next thing you know he’ll be hurtin’ cubs! He’s broken every other rule we got!”

The small Arrancar, at least, said this in a much lower volume, even if her tone could have scorched metal. Then her thin shoulders hunched and she curled up around the rake in her hands, holding it upright and hugging the bamboo shaft to her body.

Sitting between the two, Hana was struck by how wounded they seemed. Starrk usually appeared disheveled on a good day, but he looked positively wretched now, clothes wrinkled, long hair tangled, as if he’d slept here all week without moving, bathing or eating. Lilinette’s eyes had dark circles under them and her posture projected nothing but unhappiness and remorse.

“If you want to… to be mad, Hana-chan, be mad at me,” the girl sniffled. “Starrk didn’t even want to fight. I did. I wanted to kill everyone we fought and Starrk told me no, that we were gonna take care of the ones your father asked us to spare. Your papa was a good Alpha in that he gave a shit about his pack. The only thing Aizen gives a shit about is Aizen.”

Hana closed her eyes and tilted her head back until it rested against the wooden support.

If her Taichou was right, and Aizen had made offers to each recruit in his army of Arrancar based on whatever flavour of negativity that had led to their creation, then the promise that he’d made Starrk and Lilynette stood out as one of the most evil things imaginable.

He’d promised the two an end to their loneliness and isolation in a barren wasteland.

Considering what Starrk had just told her about their previous circumstances, if Hana had been in their shoes, starved for company for who knows how long, she might have taken up Aizen’s offer too.

They’d wanted a pack and the Espada themselves had made a piss-poor one, so they’d gone ahead and agreed to a dying foe’s request to care for those he considered ‘his,’ shielding them from as much of Aizen’s brutal reign as they could.

Harribel considered Hana one of ‘hers’ now as well and had been willing to hide the fact that Hana hadn’t reported the Escapees to Aizen. For a second, she wondered what her Taichou had discovered about his Mistress to make him say what he had and then chided herself. Harribel wasn’t the one with whom she had to resolve things.

Under Hollow tradition, it was an acceptable thing to do, even honourable and if Hana was a possession, she was one that neither Starrk nor Lilynette wanted to lose, if how utterly awful they looked was any indication of how they’d taken her rejection of them.

She suddenly understood what her Taichou meant about being worthy of compassion. Aizen had twisted what sounded to Hana like a desperate need for company into drawing the two into a war that at least Starrk hadn’t wanted to fight.

A cool breeze ruffled her hair and Hana sighed into it, opening her eyes and joining Starrk in staring up at the wonder that was the underside of the porch overhang.

They weren’t Shinigami, they didn’t think like Shinigami or humans and to hold them to the same standards of behaviour was… what? A waste of time? A losing proposition?

“What do you think Aizen will do with Soi Fon and the baby?” she asked.

Lilynette sniffled again and when Hana finally looked back down at Starrk, she saw a surprisingly ugly look cross his face.

Maybe Ukitake had underestimated just how ‘put out’ Starrk was with the next Espada down.

He didn’t look ‘put out.’

Starrk looked like he wanted to rip something apart.

“He starts hurting cubs and that’s it. We’re done with him,” Lilynette whispered, putting words to the expression she’d just seen on the other half’s face before it disappeared below the sleepy, morose surface and he muttered back:

“Karin’ll think of something. She’s resourceful like that. ‘Til then, she stays here.”

Starrk finally turned his eyes, the color of laden thunderclouds, her way and Hana was stunned at how much regret swam in them.

“We probably made a bad deal with Aizen, but I don’t regret taking on Jushiro, or your mother, or you. Don’t regret letting Grimmjow and his women in the door either, once Karin got him housebroken.”

Hana couldn’t help the snicker that escaped when he mentioned Grimmjow. She wasn’t sure what the Sixth would do if he heard what Starrk had said, and it occurred to her that the other Espada probably couldn’t do much about it if he did.

_“In order for one outcome to exist, we must sacrifice all others. Sometimes the choice is ours. Sometimes another makes it for us and we must go with the tide.”_

Hana had had no choice in any of this, she realized, save for one, and that was the choice in how she reacted to the choices others had made for her when she was too young to make them for herself. Harribel had given her better advice than she’d known.

Maybe Kyoraku Shunsui’s daughter wasn’t capable of completely forgiving the two of them right now, but she could extend some of the understanding her mistress and her Taichou had bestowed on her to them.

It didn’t hurt that if Lilynette’s barely contained rage regarding Aizen and the trouble with Soi Fon was any indication of the First’s view of the tyrant in the Palace, they might have more in common that she’d ever suspected.

It was at least a step closer to fixing this for good and if she came home, she wouldn’t have to use last month’s amended accounting files as a pillow.

Hana slowly got to her feet and when she went to brush the bit of dust from her hakama, she noticed she was still holding on to the lollipop that ‘take-ji had given her when she’d walked into the library. Turning her back on Starrk’s supine form, she came to a halt next to the spot where Lilynette sat with her rake. Reaching down, she extended the hand with the sweet towards the girl.

“Is my room still available?”

Lilynette’s one eye grew wide as she saw the offered candy and the tiny amount of hope Hana saw in it flared to life like a match put to dry kindling. A small hand tentatively reached out and took it, her fingers brushing Hana’s as she did. The slender Arrancar stared at it as if the goodie was dipped in gold and tied with a bow.

“It is. Always will be, if you want it.”

Starrk’s voice called out from behind her, and Hana nodded over her shoulder at him. It was a start and a better one than she’d anticipated when she came home. Straightening, Hana left the porch and the two behind her.

She had one more person to see. If she knew her mother, she’d have to drop by the room she hadn’t used in nearly a week and pull a few clean handkerchiefs from the top shelf in her closet.


	34. Experimentation

“I think I have it,” Szayel announced happily.

“That’s great and all, but how are we going to test it?” Karin inquired as she stared at the yellow liquid in the test tube Szayel proudly held up for her inspection. “Because I really have no plans to let one of those damn things take a bite out of me to see if it’s effective.”

The last time one had tasted her blood, the Swarm had almost taken her and the experience left her shaken and extremely worried about her daughter. A new thought had recently entered her head over the whole Royal Blood thing. Even if the Swarm tossed her on the Throne, the power she would gain and Aizen would lose was infinitesimal to the power Aizen already had at his command. At first, her concern had been over him killing her and her family, but now a new and more probable scenario occurred to her and gave her something new to fear.

With the Throne’s power behind her, she would be stronger, and more compatible for conception with someone of his strength. In all likelihood, Aizen wouldn’t kill her for taking on the role of the Spirit King, or at least, he wouldn’t kill her until _after_ he got an heir out of her. She would sooner be dead than watch Aizen kill her mate and then rape her for however long it took to produce a child. She didn’t even want to think about what he would do to Ajuga, whether she would share in her mother’s fate or her father’s.

 _If it came to that, I would kill her myself to spare her,_ she thought determinedly.

“Fortunately, I have already thought well ahead and have an experiment that I would like to perform. I do, however, require several vials of your blood.”

Szayel gave her the equivalent of the hopeful, big-eyed treatment Ajuga used to use when she wanted to go hunting as a child.

“Why several?” she asked suspiciously. “You aren’t still trying to crack the code are you?”

“No, I have deleted all such research,” he confessed softly.

“You, delete data?”

He nodded at her shocked exclamation.

“There is no telling if Aizen might decide to look through my files. I dare not keep such information around where it might be found,” he answered softly, almost conspiratorially. “The repercussions far outweigh the usefulness of the information itself, no matter how intriguing the data. For now, memory will have to suffice, and I have contemplated erasing that, if not for the failsafe your Claim represents. An instruction from you would keep my mouth shut under even the most extreme torture.”

As terrible as that image was, it was a small relief to Karin to know no physical data existed and Karin wish she had thought of it much sooner. It was moments like this that made her appreciate Szayel’s intelligence and his ability to plan. His other comment bothered her, but she knew that it was a possibility, especially with the way Aizen liked to toy with his prey. No one knew if or when they would snap under pressure, and the secrets Szayel kept would be devastating, not only to her, but to his family as well.

If Aizen ever learned that Szayel had known about her Royal heritage before Karin Claimed him and ordered him to stay quiet about it, well, Karin didn’t even want to contemplate what might happen to Nemu and the twins.

“I need several samples because I need at least one vial as a control to make sure that the locusts will respond to the taste of your blood alone. I need the others to find the formula’s required saturation level, to find the point at which the locust no longer responds to the stimuli,” he answered, bringing her thoughts back to the subject at hand.

“That makes sense…” she nodded, and then paused and raised one eyebrow “Wait… locusts?”

“When you gave me the challenge of ‘bug dope,’ I knew I was going to need a few… test subjects. I had Nemu collect a few live specimens during the last battle. Unlike Mushi,” he sighed at the use of the nickname, “these seem to have the mental capacity of a bowl of oatmeal. The trade-off is that they’re much easier to feed. Gathering grass is less difficult to procure than the dung that Mushi’s prefers. They do appear to share Mushi’s animosity towards Hollows, however.”

Szayel absently rubbed his arm, as if he’d experienced said animosity in an up-close and personal manner.

“Having them here will let me see if any telepathic communication exists between the locusts and Mushi. I would like to conduct the first study of such interaction after obtaining the blood samples if you don’t mind.”

“That depends on what it is this experiment entails,” she looked at him suspiciously.

“Nothing you haven’t done dozens of times already. I just want you to see Mushi. If he does see you and conveys your presence telepathically, then we might see a marked change in the locusts behaviour. I have acquired four specimens, and we’ve keeping them penned at varying distances from Mushi’s enclosure. We might be able to procure a distance measurement as well.”

Karin knew an argument that was lost before she even entered it, so with a sigh, she held her arm out towards him. His golden eyes lit up with delight and he practically skipped over to where he had the equipment waiting to draw her blood. He was truly excited and she almost didn’t need the Claim to feel it as well, with all of his giddy prancing.

Szayel pulled a stool over and she sat down, resting her arm on her knee while he set about prepping the vials and finding a tie for her arm. She was not the least bit concerned by the prick of a needle and watching her blood flow into the tubes hardly bothered her.

“Intriguing. I was unaware you were still following Karin’s blood so long after her pregnancy.”

Both of them froze, and the gleeful feeling coming from Szayel did an abrupt 180-degree turn, sliding directly into abject terror. It was a fear she shared. Karin’s mind quickly raced to formulate an appropriate excuse for the blood draw.

“Aizen-Kami,” they said simultaneously, giving a bow from their places as the best they could, her with a needle in her arm and Szayel holding the needle.

“My cycle is late and since I was here checking on my pet, I thought I might as well get him to run a test. If the pregnancy test comes back positive, he’ll already have all of the other blood work he needs. I thought I’d save some time, given the Swarm’s recent attack patterns.” Karin shrugged and tossed this off in as bored a tone as she could manage, as if it was something she’d decided to do on the way to the market.

“Would you not be capable of seeing the new reiatsu forming inside you?”

“Not this early on,” Karin replied. “It takes at least a month for the energy to show up and be discernible from that of the mother.”

She wasn’t late at all, but the excuse was plausible and Aizen dropped the subject, indicating he accepted it. It was the best she could come up with on short notice.

Szayel finished collecting her blood, his hands trembling only slightly.

“To what do we owe the honour of your visit, Kami-sama?” Szayel asked as he gathered his samples and disposed of the needle in a biohazard box.

“Have you managed to pin down the radiation type from the subject’s wings yet?” Aizen asked. “I’d like to see what progress you’ve made.”

“No, Kami-sama,” he answered in a broken whisper, and Karin felt a bolt of his fear hit her, nearly matching the fear she felt for him.

“I have given you a decent amount of time. Tell me Szayel, is _your_ ineptitude at the root of this issue, or is this a failure on your son’s part?” Aizen asked with a hint of a dangerous smile. “Abisara-kun built and runs the machine, is he not?”

“I…. yes Kami-sama,” Szayel forced out.

Karin did not like where this was going. She hastily got to her feet and put herself between Aizen and his target, drawing ‘Kami’s attention to her. It was terrifying having that handsome, yet malicious gaze focused on her, but she stood her ground. As she once told Szayel several years ago, she took care of the things she owned.

“Aizen-Kami, did you set a specific timeline for Szayel to provide the information?” Karin asked, pleased her voice was firm.

“No, I suppose I did not give him a deadline,” he replied and then paused, as if considering the development. “I will give you and your son two days, Szayel. I expect you both to report to me that evening, regardless of your findings.”

“I will make sure to clear up my schedule,” Karin assured.

“There is no need for you to attend such a boring and dry meeting. Should I feel the need to punish your pet for his incompetence, I will be sure to summon you,” Aizen assured her.

Karin eyed him sceptically, but he hadn’t left her an opening to try to extract Szayel from what was clearly a trap. She hated this feeling of helplessness when it came to dealing with their so-called ruler. He’d boxed her in and there didn’t seem to be a way out, other than the one Aizen wanted her to take. If Aizen did decide to assault Szayel, she wouldn’t be able to do anything, other than try to be the one who had to do it and thus mitigate the severity of the penalty the bastard imposed.

In truth, Aizen didn’t even have to play these games with them. He had the strength to do as we willed. The fact that he enjoyed making them squirm like worms on a hook certainly pissed her off, but Karin grudgingly admitted that he at least gave them a thin chance to weasel out of being tortured, provided they overcome the obstacles he continually tossed in their paths. If Aizen truly had his way, Szayel would be a permanent fixture in Aizen’s basement.

 _Of course, if Aizen were to push too hard, his_ _‘_ _loyal subjects_ _’_ _might start pushing back. The last thing we need is a civil war on top of the war we_ _’_ _re already fighting,_ she thought.

“I trust you will let my wife know of the results. I was pleased to hear that Nnoitra and his fraccion are expecting children. You do have a work-up on each woman, correct?” Aizen inquired and looked at Szayel expectantly.

Szayel, not expecting the topic to switch to something he deemed more comfortable and ‘safe,’ even one he enjoyed, mentally stumbled before he regained his footing, and latched on to it the way a drowning man would cling to a thrown line.

“Yes I do, Kami-sama. Would you like to see them right now?”

“Yes. Are you done here Karin?”

Aizen turned his falsely benevolent gaze her way.

She wasn’t, but she knew an attempt at a dismissal when she heard one. The excuse she had given didn’t really warrant her staying any longer now that Szayel had her blood. Fortunately, she had no plans on leaving Szayel alone with this bastard. Judging by the spike of terror she got from him, Szayel didn’t want her to leave any more than she wanted to leave him alone with his tormentor.

“Today is my day off. I wanted to stay and get the test results, rather than waiting a day for them. In addition, Tatsuki-chan and Rangiku-chan are good friends of mine. I would like to see the report Unohana-Taichou and Szayel have compiled on each of them and I see no point in making him repeat his findings twice. That is, if you do not mind my presence, Kami-sama,” she said and looked at Aizen.

That earned her a thin-lipped smile, and he almost looked pleased with her reply. He’d probably been testing her in some way, and she’d passed whatever hurdle he’d placed before her. Karin hated the convoluted games he played, using the people below him as pieces, but at least it seemed like she would be able to remain, which was good. She didn’t trust Aizen alone with Szayel, and she got the feeling that Aizen knew it.

Unfortunately, that allowed him to continue to try to mess with them.

“Of course,” he conceded, and then turned to the scientist. “Szayel, your reports.”

“Yes, Kami-sama, Karin-sama,” he bowed to them both before moving over to the main computer so he could call up both women’s files from the Division database. A few minutes later, two side-by-side files appeared on the screen overhead, and Szayel opened the first bundle of documents, which included a number of graphs, ultrasound scans and pages with test value results expressed down to the decimal point.

“Tatsuki Lindocruz; approximately three weeks along. Given Tesra’s base creature, I predict she will give birth any time between the middle of May to early June. So far, the fetus appears completely healthy, as does Tatsuki herself. Both parents seem quite excited about their first child. I see no reason for concern regarding the safety of either the child or the mother.”

He pulled up the graphs and the images so that ‘Kami-sama’ had a better view of the information. No one could accuse Szayel of not being thorough enough when it came to tracking the development of the hybrid children.

“Good. What of the other one?” Aizen asked and Szayel opened the second set of files, collapsing the first and pulling up new sets of data.

“Ah yes, Matsumoto Rangiku. She appears to be three weeks along as well, give or take. The father is, of course, Nnoitra Gilga. Hers is a much more interesting case. Her pregnancy seems to be taking the same route that Nemu’s took, albeit with a few minor differences.”

Szayel’s voice held a bit of excitement now. “The young are developing in eggs, within her womb. Unlike my own twins, her children show up on the ultrasound, and the shells appear as translucent coverings in the pictures.”

With a few taps to the keyboard, Szayel brought up a series of images, showing that indeed, there seemed to be a thin, see-through shroud around each of the tiny, curled forms.

“As Nnoitra’s base creature is a praying mantis, I predict she may lay those eggs as Nemu did, and I expect her to do so during the same time as Tatsuki Lindocruz, between the middle of May and early June. While Nnoitra hasn’t declared any interest in the children, I believe he told her that she could keep them and she will have the assistance of Tesra and Tatsuki in raising them,” Szayel reported.

“You use the plural. How many children is she carrying?” Aizen asked, sounding interested now.

“Two,” Szayel promptly replied. “Nnoitra and I are both insect-based and I suspect that fact contributes to multiple births in the event of a Shinigami mother. Of course, until more pregnancies show up, it is pure speculation.”

“It’s a good thing our human and Shinigami halves kick in, at least when it comes to quantity. I can’t imagine giving birth to a litter. Picture four to six Ajugas running around,” Karin muttered, given her head a shake to dispel the image.

She wasn’t positive, but she thought she saw Aizen purse his lips and wince as she brought it up. Szayel shivered, and he had a matching look of horror that went with it. The world wasn’t ready for that many small versions of Grimmjow running around. The Realms were unbalanced enough as it was. That many duplicates of her daughter could seriously throw a wrench in the attempt to keep things on an even keel.

“Papa, Papa, look what ‘Ji-ji and I found!”

Vindula’s childish voice pulled the attention of the three adults away from contemplating a six-pack of Grimmjow’s progeny and towards the little girl excitedly skipping their way. “Oh, good afternoon Kami-sama!”

Vindula bowed politely before him. Aizen graced her with a smile that made Karin grit her teeth. “Ji-ji took me to the park and we found some daffodils growing next to one of the gazebos.”

She showed them the flower buds, clutched in her small hand, picked a little before they might have bloomed.

The weather had been warm this year and all indicators pointed to an early spring. The grass was already starting to green up and any ‘warm spots’ had early spring flowers growing. In fact, some of the flowers and trees in Jushiro’s gardens that would have normally flowered in April had begun to bud. At this rate, the trees would be in full leaf by mid to late February.

Aizen looked down at the excited child, seemingly bemused, as Renji finally caught up to his charge. His exasperated expression turned into a look of deep concern as he realized who was visiting and how close Vindula was to the very real predator in the room.

“That is wonderful, Vindula-chan. You should put them in a vase of water so the flowers will develop properly,” Aizen informed her with a polite smile.

“That’s what I was looking for!”

Vindula turned to face her father with a wide, innocent smile, completely oblivious to the tension between the four adults. “Papa, can I use one of your beakers, please?”

“Of course Vindula. Why don’t you and Renji go get one from your mother?” he suggested.

“Okay, thanks Papa!” Vindula bowed to Aizen once more and skipped her way back towards an increasingly relieved Renji as she got closer to him and further from her father’s torturer.

“Oh!”

Vindula suddenly paused, causing everyone, minus Aizen, to hold his or her collective breath. “Can I come see your gardens again, Aizen-Kami? They were pretty and Gin-san was really nice,” she added. “I bet a lot of your flowers are almost ready to bloom too!”

Karin could see the tension in the air, and not just metaphorically. Both Renji and Szayel’s reiatsu had gone stormy, and the sheer amount both threw off in reaction to the perceived threat to Vindula almost blinded her. She suspected her own reiatsu probably looked just as bad.

Aizen smiled benignly at Vindula as he answered her question.

“Of course, Vindula-chan. Your father and brother were going to come visit me in two days. Would you like to see the gardens then? My wife should be home and I am sure she would love to show you her garden, as well as spend time with a charming child such as yourself.”

Karin wasn’t sure whose fear was greater, Szayel’s, Renji’s, or hers. Vindula-chan, completely unaware of what was going on, smiled back at Aizen while cheerfully accepting his offer. Then she skipped the rest of the way back to her now-horrified guardian.

Renji and Szayel shared a look, one that everyone but Vindula read accurately, and the ex-Fukutaichou made a hasty exit with the little winged girl.

“She’s a charming little thing,” Aizen noted in a smooth voice. “It’s a shame that she inherited neither your intellect nor your powers. Still, the world needs pretty and fragile things to fill it.”

Then he made a show of looking at his hands, as if contemplating his fingernails.

“A pity such things, despite their beauty, fade so quickly and break so easily.”

That was a thinly veiled threat if Karin had ever heard one, and the next jolt of terror that slammed into her from Szayel let her know he definitely hadn’t missed what Aizen implied.

“I believe I have learned all I need to for now. Good luck on your test, Karin,” he said and offered her a smile and she forced out a polite ‘thank you’ when all she really wanted to do was tell him to take his threats and fuck off.

 _Yep, Grimmjow has definitely been a bad influence,_ she couldn’t help but to think. _And I wonder where Ajuga-chan gets it from._

Aizen, appearing content for now, finally left. Both Karin and Szayel let out a huge sigh of relief and the air seemed to clear now that the miasma from Aizen’s overwhelming presence began to dissipate.

“I congratulate you on your quick thinking, Karin-sama.”

Szayel delivered the compliment while they both regained their bearings.

“Yeah,” she agreed, and then hesitated. “Szayel is there even a snowball’s chance in Hell you’ll be able to decode the radiation from Mushi’s wings in two days?” she asked.

“It’s possible but,” he nibbled on his lower lip nervously, “very unlikely.”

Szayel’s entire body seemed to deflate and he moved over to a stool to collapse into it.

“At least he promised to call me if he feels the need to be an ass,” she tried to reassure him.

“I don’t think Aizen plans on punishing me at all.”

Szayel’s voice sounded weak and despair replaced the overwhelming fear she had been getting through their link.

“What do you mean?” she asked worriedly.

“He won’t go after me, or at least, I doubt it.” Szayel’s eyes closed in pain. “No, he’ll go after Abisara instead,” he whispered turning tear-filled eyes her way.

“He wouldn’t!” she growled. “Not even Ulquiorra would accept that! Aizen wouldn’t dare cross that line. Even Nnoitra, despite his piggish ways, would protest over that!”

“Only if they found out about it,” Szayel pointed out, his golden eyes bleak. “Accidents do happen. I expect your mate will be out on a mission that evening.”

“Probably,” she agreed.

Aizen always made sure that Grimmjow was distracted when he made most of his moves against Szayel. Thinking of her mate, she realized that he was probably getting anxious with the rollercoaster’s worth of emotions she’d been sending him. In fact, she could feel as much through their Mating Claim. Karin took a deep breath, grounded herself and sent as much love through their link as she could, to let him know she was fine. The burst of emotion was short and of a specific amount, a signal they’d developed to let Grimmjow know that Szayel was influencing Karin. Sometimes, having two active Claims could be a bitch.

“Szayel?”

“Yes?”

“How on earth do you Arrancar handle all these outside emotions? Balancing your emotions and Grimmjow’s with my own is a pain in the ass on a good day. How could anyone handle more?” she asked. “I mean, how on earth can the more violent Arrancar abuse their pets so often and so much when the pain and fear keep lashing into them?”

Szayel paused, as if he’d never really contemplated a Claim from that perspective, and then snapped his fingers.

“Ah. Well, for starters, most Hollows tend to live off negative emotions, and they enjoy it. I suspect, from what I have picked up from you over the years as far as feedback about our Claim that Arrancar physiology and psychology handle and dampen what we feel from our pets. We seem to be designed to do so. As a human, you lack those defences and thus, you feel the full extent of all emotions going through the link.”

He must have realized she was still struggling a little with the concept because he continued.

“Think of it like your ‘sight.’ We Arrancar have built in ‘sunglasses’ to filter the emotions and temper them, removing the sharp spikes that would serve as a distraction. You, as a human, do not.”

“Gotcha. That’s why Yammy can get away with torturing Byakuya so badly and not suffer any ill effects.”

“Exactly. Now then,” he said briskly, rising from his stool, “let us get this testing done so I can turn my attention to decoding that radiation. Maybe I will get lucky and have a breakthrough.”

“Here’s hoping.”

“Oh, Karin-sama?”

“Hmm?”

“Did you actually want me to run a pregnancy test?” he queried, with as innocent an expression as Szayel was capable of making. Karin snorted and shook her head.

“No,” she laughed. “I am definitely not pregnant. Let’s go check out these pet locusts of yours and see if your bug dope works. The sooner we can get Ajuga, Hana, and I inoculated the better.”

“Yes, I agree. I have no desire to experience the kind of fright that went through me when you were nearly taken.”

“Aww, I just knew you loved me,” she said in a sweeter voice than necessary and smiled insipidly at him. His eye twitched in response, but he cleared his throat and put on an air of dignity.

“I love my adult form, thank you very much, and I find the idea of sharing a bed with Grimmjow should something happen to you quite repulsive.”

The scientist sniffed and tossed a length of pink hair out of his face.

“I would have to kill you for trying to steal my mate,” she sniped back playfully.

They continued their banter, using it as a way to shake off the excess anxiety from Aizen’s unannounced visit. Karin watched as Szayel gathered his wife and a team of staff members that he trusted the most. He informed them they were going to try various radio waves to see how the Swarm reacted, while he personally oversaw feeding one of the locusts grass tainted with her blood. To make certain that the sound wasn’t the actual cause of distress, they planned to play the decibel level twice. Since Nemu would oversee that aspect of the experiment, only those in on Karin’s secret would know that they’d played the sounds more than once and that there was more to this experiment than met the eye, or the ear in this case.

Szayel assigned Karin to observe Mushi, to watch for any signs that the Scarab had picked up a signal from the locusts. With everyone in position and linked by the com system monitored by Nemu, they began the test.

She watched the time and Mushi, waiting for anything to happen. She noticed it immediately when Mushi froze, instantly stopping her fastidious cleaning. Karin jotted down the time and documented the behavioural change in detailed notes. After about a minute, Mushi went back to cleaning herself, but now seemed a little upset. Mushi stopped a second time, but this time returned to her grooming more quickly. Karin made another note in her little book.

“Karin-sama, can you please check on Mushi now?” Nemu requested over the com.

“Roger that,” she responded back.

She wasn’t the least bit worried entering the cell alone with Mushi. She knew by now that the Scarab posed no harm to her. Mushi was instantly excited as she entered the holding cell. Karin offered the Scarab a smile and let her hand rest on Mushi’s forehead as the Scarab eagerly approached her.

“Hello Mushi,” she greeted her. “How are you feeling today?” she asked.

Mushi clicked and chattered away happily. Karin almost wished she could understand what Mushi was saying, that they had some way to communicate. She had grown attached to the portal scarab. It was even starting to bother her that Szayel kept the thing in such a small enclosure, left all alone for hours on end when the Espada wasn’t running tests on the bug.

 _At least I know she_ _’_ _s not being mistreated in anyway,_ Karin reasoned.

Nemu joined them after several minutes. Mushi ignored the Shinigami and Nemu took that time to refill the feed box and clean the water trough before replenishing the fresh water. Karin kept her attention on Mushi until Nemu finished. With a sigh, Karin gave Mushi’s head a good head rub and stepped away. Somehow, the Scarab managed to look dejected, but she had learned that no amount of begging or chittering would make Karin stay.

“I’ll be back to visit again,” she found herself promising the poor imprisoned Scarab.

Mushi still looked sad, but made a noise that sounded like resigned acceptance as Karin left. Szayel was waiting for her on the observation deck overlooking Mushi’s cell.

“Well?” they both asked each other at the same time.

Karin laughed while Szayel shook his head in exasperation.

“Mushi reacted at least twice,” Karin spoke up first, handing over her little notebook with the notes she had made.

Szayel eagerly snatched the book and started to review her notes, nodding appreciably as he perused them. It didn’t take long and he snapped the book closed before setting it under his arm.

“The third and fourth samples garnered no reaction. I also tried it out with some leftover blood samples I had from Ajuga’s last round of tests. No reaction. I have no samples of Hana’s blood, but as the product masked both yours and Ajuga’s blood, I see no reason why it would not work on her as well, as weak as the signature is in hers. With your permission, I would like to inoculate you now while you are here,” he looked at her hopefully.

“Do it,” she agreed, feeling a great amount of relief at the results. “Did the locusts show any signs of talking to Mushi while I was in with her?” Karin asked as she sat down in an empty chair while he set about preparing the injection.

“No. However, I conclude that Mushi could have if she desired. She is much more intelligent and probably realizes that the locusts are incapable of getting to you in such a room, and as such didn’t bother sending them the signal to ‘acquire’ you. All four responded quickly however, meaning their range with one another and with Mushi is much further than I may have anticipated.”

Szayel returned to her side with a needle full of the yellow liquid. He paused and looked her dead in the eye.

“I swear to you Karin-sama, that the contents I am about to inject into your bloodstream are benign and contain nothing more than the necessary components required to hide your Royal Heritage from the Swarm,” he vowed.

She gave him a nod to proceed, not even flinching when the needle went into her muscle and he pumped the yellow liquid into her body.

“I do not believe there will be any negative side effects, but let me know immediately if you feel anything is amiss,” he warned her.

“I will,” she assured him. “Do you have two more of those? I can give Hana and Ajuga their shots when I get home.”

“I do. Is… Hana speaking to everyone again then?” he asked.

She’d given him a brief synopsis of what had happened with the girl and the First a few days after it happened, in case Hana decided that she wanted to talk to the scientist about it.

“Yes. She sat down and had a long talk with Starrk and Lilynette. None of them is talking about what they discussed, but at least some of the strain between them is fading. The only real trouble at the Estate right now is the situation with Soi Fon, and I may have a solution to that one,” Karin admitted. “I just need the time to deal with it,” she sighed.

“Good, good. You did say you have this afternoon off, right?” Szayel asked.

“Yes, why?” she asked suspiciously.

“Would you be willing to stay and assist with studying Mushi? Perhaps you can get her to activate her wings so we can get a better reading on the radiation.”

“I will try, but I make no promises.”

“At this point, I will take any help I can get.”

Karin accompanied Nemu back into Mushi’s cell. The Scarab was thrilled to see her for the second time that day, of course. Karin only hoped that she could get Mushi to do what she wanted, but somehow she doubted it. It wasn’t as if she had a way of communicating with the animal. Still, for the next two days Karin spent as much time helping Szayel as she could. All of the other projects Szayel had underway were on hold or handed off to other researchers. Yet, after those two days, no answers were forthcoming. They’d also lost a large portion of the first day to a battle. Mushi refused to activate her wings and thus, they had no opportunities to decode the resulting signature. When one of the Arrancar guards from Aizen’s Palace arrived in the laboratory to ‘remind’ Szayel about his appointment that evening, they knew they had run out of time.


	35. For My Child

One pastime Aizen never tired of involved playing games of mental strategy with his various subordinates and opponents. He enjoyed making them dance like puppets on strings attached to his fingers and pulling those strings using nothing more than a few well-timed words or a threat wrapped in a smile. He had one going now that would keep him preoccupied for the next twenty-four hours or so. This game wasn’t the elaborate, years-long endeavour of intense and careful manipulation that had led to the Gotei 13’s inevitable defeat. That had been, literally, his crowning achievement, the game he was most proud of winning. However, sometimes a short, intense round with one of his pawns was preferable.

_I should have paid attention sooner to the younger Kurosaki, or Jaegerjaquez as she goes by these days. She is a most amusing opponent._

Karin was far more intelligent than her brother had ever been. She also had far better control over her emotions. The girl hadn’t inherited her brother’s raw strength and had little formal schooling, but somewhere she had acquired a fine mind and the ability to come up with creative solutions. She found the little openings that his laws had inadvertently created and cleverly wiggled through them. Sometimes she missed a mark, but more often than not, she kept herself and her chosen companions out of his clutches. Of course, he had never figured that one of his favourite toys would fall into her grasp, but his irritation at ‘losing’ Szayel was short-lived when he contemplated how such a development would add an element of challenge to their current match of wits. It was no fun if he had to resort to using his overwhelming strength to take what he wanted. It would be bad form to do so, the equivalent of tossing the chessboard across the room and gods were above tantrums. That ability to plan, to think on her feet and strategize was what separated Karin from her hot-blooded brother.

Besides, the outcomes were so much more amusing when those beneath him thought they actually had a chance at winning the contests he set before them. Karin was a worthy opponent and as such, it made the times he got Szayel under him taste all the sweeter. He would be the first to admit that having to work for a prize improved his appetite for it.

Tonight would be one of those nights. He’d ordered Gin to prepare the basement for an evening of carnal lust, and the best part was that he was only a move away from forcing Szayel into a position where he would willingly spread his legs for his god, all without Aizen breaking his word to Karin about punishments. In fact, he would place money on Szayel’s consent to follow him down the stairs and into the room that the Espada feared so very much. Oh yes, he looked forward to this particular ‘win’ and the cherry on top of the sundae would be watching Karin simmer in anger the next morning, while he forced her to finish punishing Szayel for failing to provide the data he wanted.

Aizen hadn’t truly expected Szayel and his son to complete the machine and bring him the decoded information in the span of a mere two days, but he would use their ‘failure’ as a convenient excuse to reassert his dominance over the scientist and add another nail in the coffin of Szayel’s free will. There was also that pretty son of his. The boy was too young now, but Aizen was sure that in a few years’ time, he could start grooming the boy into the perfect toy. Abisara had such lovely skin and Aizen was sure that a few artfully placed bruised would only enhance it.

He closed his eyes and let the power of the Throne flow through him. It wasn’t as much as he would have access to once Unohana finally gave him a proper heir and the mingling of their bloodlines rendered his ‘Royal’ as well, but it was enough to let him see everything under the sky. Sound, however, remained elusive. He focused his vision on Szayel’s precious Science and Research Building, watching it like a hawk until his victims came out into the light.

There they were… little Vindula, fluttering about in excitement and Abisara, walking solemnly beside his father. The girl was all sunshine and innocence and how a shifty and treacherous creature like Szayel had spawned her astounded Aizen at times. The boy, on the other hand, was sharp and realized that he was walking into a dangerous situation. Szayel walked stiffly with a forced smile on his face as he answered one of Vindula’s many questions. There was one more, less-welcome addition to the little band and Aizen frowned as the setting sun reflected off vibrant red hair. Renji accompanied them and most of the redhead’s attention stayed on Vindula as she did a spinning leap into the air, her cellophane wings glittering as they helped her rise up several feet and twirl before she gracefully landed a few yards away.

While he hadn’t anticipated Abarai Renji tagging along, he knew just how to get rid of him. He planned to separate Vindula from her father and brother, and it would be easy to shove Renji off with her, assuming the tattooed half-wit didn’t stay on the street. If Renji did follow the scientist and his children past the Palace gates, it would be one more thing he could use to make Karin punish Szayel. He had explicitly invited Szayel and his children to the Palace, making no mention of Szayel’s ‘pet.’ The last time Szayel had brought him, the redhead had conveniently, and surprisingly, interjected himself into the discussion he’d hoped to use to set Szayel up for another round in the basement. The result, while entertaining in a different kind of way, had left him feeling less than satisfied. Aizen wasn’t going to let the red-haired annoyance deter him this time.

A thought suddenly occurred to him, and he gave the idea some serious thought before discarding it. He could force Karin to punish her pet in a sexual manner if he so desired, but he decided against it for now. That bit of double-teaming might push Grimmjow over the edge. Unlike Szayel, Grimmjow lacked the common sense to fear him. It might even give the Sixth the incentive to snap back at his ‘creator.’

Dealing with Grimmjow required a different, more hands-off approach. In this case, all Aizen needed to manipulate him and keep his so-called ‘loyalty’ was to allow the beast some free reign. Like any cat, it would prove useless to leash him, and as long as Aizen fed it, the creature would reluctantly come when he called it, or reminded it who controlled the can opener. Too much attention, either positive or negative, would have the cat hissing and clawing. Grimmjow, unlike Szayel, wasn’t the sort to break easily and would have no qualms running away to find a new owner if Aizen pushed him too much either way.

Szayel, on the other hand, valued his lab and equipment too much. Unlike a cat, he could use that to chain Szayel and the Seventh had the intelligence, and the common sense, to fear his master. The scientist would sooner break than lose his toys and he knew that there was no escape from Aizen’s scrutiny. Any attempt to flee would brand him as a traitor and he would surrender his freedoms with it. If Grimmjow was a cat, Szayel was a parrot with clipped wings that could flutter about in his cage, or from perch to perch, but was too intelligent to attempt to escape through the cage door because it knew that on the other side lay nothing more than a room with no exit. While the room did have a few places to hide, it would only hide him for so long before Aizen would find him. If he dared to attempt an escape, that cage door would close, the brief scent of freedom would be forever taken away and he would be placed in an even smaller cage, maybe even have his wings surgically removed instead of just having a few feathers cut.

“You called for me?”

His wife’s voice broke through his reflections, dispelling the image he had of the Sixth and the Seventh as metaphorical animals.

Dismissing his ‘other sight,’ Aizen turned his gaze towards Unohana, who stood before his Throne in a completely serene manner. She had arrived before their guests, exactly as he had planned and anticipated, still wearing her Taichou’s uniform.

“We are going to be having guests. Little Vindula-chan requested permission to explore your garden, and I thought she would enjoy your company while doing so.”

He smiled at her. If she was surprised, she gave no sign of it.

“I already ordered the servants to have tea and refreshments prepared. Please change into something more befitting the consort of a god,” he ordered and waved her away dismissively.

She gave a bow of her head and silently exited the chamber. The fact she’d said nothing to him was no surprise; she’d proven immune to any verbal baiting he’d tossed her way early in their ‘marriage’ and he didn’t feel like wasting any time trying to provoke a reaction. It was enough that she kept quiet, continued her work at the 4th Division, and spread her thighs dutifully for him in the pursuit of an heir.

He had given Gin instructions on her attire for the evening while entertaining the little girl and his other toy waited for her in her quarters to see that she wore what he’d picked out. Afterwards, Gin would retreat to the basement to wait for him there. With his preparations made, Aizen relaxed on the Throne, anticipating the match that would shortly begin and the trophy that would no doubt be his.

It was hard to say who hated this more, Szayel, or the ex-Shinigami walking next to him. There was only one concern on either of the adults’ minds and that was the welfare of the children. While Aizen had, as of yet, to raise his hand against any of the hybrid children, that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t if he thought it would serve his purposes. The only one who didn’t seem to notice that anything was amiss was Vindula, who was so excited she practically buzzed. It was as if she was a hummingbird let loose in a field of flowers and she was currently pestering her brother about everything at the Palace.

Szayel thought that it was just as well. It kept her from following the conversation he was having with Abarai.

“Your presence might make things worse. Kami-sama was strict about the guest list,” Szayel said in a quiet, yet firm voice as his eyes shifted to the man striding at his side.

Renji had one hand on Zabimaru’s hilt and both eyes on the children walking before them.

“You think the bastard is going to pull something?” Renji asked, but there was very little doubt in his voice. His words were more of a statement, as if it were a given.

“I think it’s a matter of ‘when,’ not ‘if,’ Abarai.”

Szayel let out a depressed sigh and nodded his head. He doubted things would go pleasantly, and the only thing he could do was try to mitigate the fallout. Aizen had ‘summoned’ him too many times for him to expect anything other than pain and humiliation. This time, unfortunately, his children were involved, thanks to Aizen’s unreasonable demands and his daughter’s inability to sense a viper when she encountered one. He was going to have to ask Renji to make sure that he kept Vindula from asking for anymore ‘favours’ from Aizen, or just kept her from interacting with their ruler if possible.

“I am worried for them,” he confessed softly, his own eyes watching his children, particularly Abisara.

If things continued this way, his son was in danger of sharing the same fate as his father. Vindula was no threat to Aizen, but Abisara had a sharp mind and Aizen had noticed it before he’d had a chance to hide the child’s intelligence. Of course, his own boasting hadn’t helped matters, but he had never considered the possibility that Aizen would target his children. He cursed himself for being so foolish and naive enough not to have foreseen it. Aizen was a Shinigami and they weren’t above hurting children if it benefited them.

“You really think my presence will make things worse?” Renji asked through gritted teeth.

“Yes,” Szayel answered without hesitation. “If Aizen-Kami doesn’t want you there, then I can assure you he will find a way to get rid of you. Do you want a repeat of last time? You’re fighting on the lines now. I would think that would be difficult with a shredded back.”

They walked in silence for some time, both of them stewing in their thoughts. If anything, the grip Renji held on Zabimaru’s hilt tightened so much that his entire hand was white from the pressure.

“I’ll wait by the gate.” Renji finally forced the words out, and Szayel could tell the redhead did not like even that option. “But if I detect even the **_slightest_** hint that Vindula-chan or Abisara-kun are in danger, I am busting my way in and the consequences be damned.”

Szayel nodded his head in agreement, and surprisingly, found the words reassuring. He didn’t doubt for a second that his pet-in-name-only would do just that, and as Szayel had put the word out that Renji was under Claim-induced orders to protect the twins, the oaf might even get away with it too. If Aizen punished anyone for it, it would be Szayel, for failing to control his ‘property’.

 _I would sooner spend a year in Aizen-Kami_ _’_ _s basement than see any harm come to my children,_ he thought determinedly.

If things did go badly and Renji had to break in to rescue the twins, he would gladly take full responsibility for it as long as it kept Aizen’s hands off his progeny.

Szayel had to admit something to himself and that was that it might be time to find a way of ensuring his children’s safety by putting them beyond Aizen’s reach. He hated to contemplate it, but he had to consider what was best for Vindula and Abisara. Getting them out of the Soul Society completely would be a last resort, but if it came to it…

What made it more tempting was that he had to perfect vehicle with which to do it. That turquoise-haired strumpet, Nel, held Renji’s Claim and the redhead could even make a run for it with the children in tow without any fear of Aizen forcing Szayel to track him down. While taking a Senkaimon was out, Szayel had other, unofficial ways of opening a Garganta that no one would trace directly back to him. If memory served, he still had a device that he’d developed years ago, one that would allow the user to open a Garganta without having to expend the energy to do so manually. With some effort, he was sure that he could shrink the necessary components to a portable size and instruct Abarai to use it, if he kept the directions simple and the words small. The only obstacle was that the device was in Hueco Mundo, in one of his storage facilities. He supposed he could retrieve it on the pretext of bringing in machinery and parts in order to build the detectors that Aizen wanted so badly, but that would take some time.

Who knew that he’d be truly happy that the tattooed half-wit was still around, at least cognizant, and chained by Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck? Unlike the rest of the Claimed Shinigami, Renji had no orders not to defend himself with the full power of his Zanpakuto. In addition, Renji would willing sacrifice his life if it meant keeping the twins safe, and that was one of the few reassuring thoughts Szayel had these days.

The gates rose up before them, and Renji shared a dark look with him that reiterated his promise even as he took a spot by the gate and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms and glaring straight ahead. The two Arrancar guards at the gate eyed the ex-Shinigami with a mixture of wariness and boredom, but otherwise let Szayel and his children pass unhindered. Vindula’s eyes darted everywhere as she took in the majesty of the Palace Aizen had constructed for his personal use. She had only gotten to see the place once after all, and that had been nearly two years ago when she was younger.

Szayel often wondered why Aizen hadn’t stayed in the Imperial Spirit Realm after taking the Throne and killing its former occupant, but had concluded that it was far more practical to rule here rather than in a place that required such complex spiritual gymnastics to enter. Aizen was a textbook micromanager, and after he finished slaughtering every living thing in the Imperial Spirit Realm, little remained there, other than the architecture itself. Szayel thought that was a shame, for he would have loved to see it. Maybe he could get Aizen to let him in one day, but he doubted it. Such secrets had the potential to be dangerous, especially in the hands of someone as mentally powerful as he was.

Szayel was also at the point where the urge to use such secrets against Aizen might prove too enticing to resist.

“Vindula, don’t touch anything,” he warned his daughter when he noticed she had fluttered over to one of the bonsai trees bordering the path they were walking down. If that wasn’t enough, Abisara chimed in, his small voice far more subdued that his father would have liked.

“‘Dula, stop it. You’ll get us into trouble.”

She looked at him, disappointed, but obediently returned to Szayel’s side when he gestured her over. Vindula obviously didn’t want to do anything wrong and be sent home before she could see more of this stunning palace. There were times he simply did not understand the girl. She had always been obsessed with beautiful things, and he wondered where his daughter had picked up such an interest in loveliness, to the point of vanity. He certainly hadn’t bequeathed it to her and he knew his mate hadn’t encouraged it. Their nanny was hardly a connoisseur of taste and aesthetics, given his unbecoming choice in body adornment. He didn’t even bother pondering the rest of his staff. The geeks that made up the scientifically minded lot were more likely to find a beaker of sulphuric acid spellbinding than clothing, silks or flowers.

_Kami help me when she discovers jewellery_ _…_

A servant met them at the main doors leading into the Palace proper. For safety’s sake, he grabbed Vindula’s hand before she could flutter off as the silent minion led them down splendidly appointed hallways. Her eyes were wide open in stunned delight and he swore the only thing keeping her at his side was the fact he had a firm grip on her hand. The decorations had changed since the last time she had been here, swapped out for new ones that reflected the current season, early as it was.

Abisara, for all he tried to imitate his father’s purposeful demeanour, also seemed impressed with his surroundings as he took in the display of wealth. The boy’s hands twitched as his son resisted the urge to touch some of the artwork they passed. Fortunately, Abisara was carrying the reports and thus had something with which to occupy his hands.

They finally entered the Throne room, and Szayel felt a chill run down his body as Aizen’s eyes swept over his two children and landed on him. He shivered involuntarily as those brown eyes looked him up and down and he swore that Aizen was mentally stripping him with his gaze. What appeal he had eluded Szayel. It wasn’t as if his body held any secrets from their lord and master and he would have thought the novelty would have worn off by now.

He felt his mouth go dry and his steps faltered a bit as they approached Aizen and bowed with a polite and subservient ‘Kami-sama.’

“Excellent, I am so pleased you could come,” Aizen said, giving them a beatific smile. “I believe my wife is waiting for you, Vindula-chan, unless, of course, you would rather stay here with us while we talk about your father’s findings.”

“No thank you, Kami-sama.”

Vindula did a poor job of hiding her dislike of such an idea.

“Very well,” he waved her away.

Vindula was quick to escape the grip Szayel had on her hand and ran excitedly over to where the servant who had led them to the throne room stood waiting for her. Szayel felt only marginally better now that one of his children was out of harm’s way. She would be completely safe with Unohana. The sound of the door closing behind his daughter’s exit echoed throughout the room and sent icy fingers of terror up his spine.

“Now then, your report,” Aizen gestured at the two remaining males. “I trust you have good news?”

“I am afraid not, Kami-sama,” Szayel confessed. “We have gathered a considerable amount of information, but the residual radiation from the wings of both the living Specimen and the deceased ones has worn off. We have been unsuccessful, thus far, in getting the specimen to activate her wings for us.”

“I see,” Aizen frowned at them, displeased. “So you have failed me.”

“Yes, Kami-sama. I have failed you,” Szayel confessed, bowing his head and waiting for him to summon Karin so that she could administer his punishment.

“The signature did last a while, did it not?” Aizen asked, shifting his gaze and directing the question not him, but his son.

“It did, Kami-sama,” Abisara answered, the boy’s voice wavering only slightly.

Szayel was impressed, but Abisara didn’t know Aizen the way he did. There was no reason, as of yet, for Abisara to fear ‘Kami-sama’ the way Szayel did for he had done his best to hide what Aizen did to him from his children, and Aizen was very good at portraying a kindly front. He’d had well over a century to perfect the façade, after all.

“So you would say that the failure to capture a radiation signature in that time was your fault?” Aizen asked.

Szayel made to protest, but his words died in his throat as Aizen shifted his eyes towards him. He felt his entire body go numb in fear and he could hear his own blood rushing so loudly in his ears that he barely heard his son agree that their failure was his fault.

Szayel understood now. Aizen hadn’t requested that Karin come because he had planned to punish Abisara for their joint failure all along. As far as Aizen was concerned, Karin’s Claim of ownership didn’t extend to his children.

 _He wouldn_ _’_ _t!_ Szayel prayed desperately, even though he already knew Aizen would.

This was not outright torture. This was simply a punishment, one Abisara had unwittingly agreed to. So long as Aizen didn’t take it too far, very few would protest, assuming they ever learned of it. It was simply not in a Hollow’s nature to share a weakness, hence the reason he had never confessed to the others that Aizen had raped him several times despite the fact that it was one of his kind’s few taboos.

“If I may say so, Kami-sama, the signature was weak, and we had no idea that we would be looking for radiation when we began searching for the energy signature. It took time to build the appropriate machine. Since it would be too dangerous to introduce a secondary specimen to the first for obvious reasons, may I suggest that we design several portable devices and send Karin-sama and Starrk-sama out in the field again to gather readings from active portals,” Abisara flawlessly suggested.

Szayel suddenly felt the weight lift off him as Aizen’s gaze shifted back to Abisara, intrigue now on the man’s face. In fact, it seemed Aizen was actually interested in what Abisara had to say, and even Szayel found himself listening intently.

“An intriguing idea,” Aizen agreed. “I will have you work on that once you get home. Make several. I see no reason why we cannot send out several people to try and find the portals.”

Szayel felt himself breath a bit easier. The two of them might get out of this yet and he silently praised his son for his quick thinking. He made a mental note to give some vocal praise latter. His son deserved to know when he did something right.

“I shall start immediately,” Abisara assured Aizen, his chin out, shoulders back, green eyes clear and unblinking.

“Good. Unfortunately, your failure to anticipate and have such technology ready for the first round of specimens is very displeasing to me, and something I would consider a failure. Do you not agree?” Aizen asked.

Just like that, all of the fear was back. Szayel willed his son to remain silent, but Abisara dutifully answered that he agreed that he had been shortsighted in that respect.

“Children have a considerable amount to learn,” Szayel finally interjected, unconsciously moving closer to his son and drawing Aizen’s attention back to him. “I blame myself for not thinking of such things ahead of time.”

“You are both at fault, for this was a joint project, was it not?” Aizen asked.

Szayel decided that he did not like where this was going.

“Now, we all know that Karin-sama will be delivering your punishment Szayel, I shall instruct her as much in the morning, but as for Abisara-kun here…” Aizen’s smile fell upon the young boy and it was nothing short of predatory.

Szayel acted quickly, without even thinking about. The need to protect his son overweighed and overrode any other rational thought. All he could think about was Aizen forcing him to watch as their ruler tortured his son in the same way that he had been tortured. At that moment, fear trumped reason and he reacted out of instinct to save Abisara.

“I will take my son’s punishment for him, as it was my fault he was inadequately trained,” he offered.

Abisara turned and looked up at his father in surprise, while Aizen just smiled at him in pleasure, in that way that a cat would look at a mouse that had wandered into its food dish. Seeing that horrific, serene smile on Aizen’s face made Szayel realize he had walked right into Aizen’s well-laid trap. Szayel’s fear for his child had blinded him to the danger lurking right in front of him.

Of course, Aizen wouldn’t have harmed Abisara too much. He was too intelligent for that. He also wouldn’t risk word getting out that he’d started punishing the children for their parents’ transgressions. A small lashing or spanking would have sufficed. Aizen had known, all along, that he would do anything to defend his son, and as such, had suckered him into taking the bait.

“Father?” Abisara frowned at him.

“It’s all right son. Your inability to get the desired results is my fault after all.”

He tried to give Abisara a reassuring smile, but he was not so sure he pulled it off.

“You desire to take Abisara-kun’s punishment upon your own body?” Aizen asked, not because he hadn’t heard Szayel’s declaration, but because Szayel swore that he was playing with the Espada now, rubbing the fact that he had all but consented to be tortured in the scientist’s face.

Whatever happened now, Szayel decided, it would at least happen to him, and not his son. As such, there would be no further reason for Aizen to keep the boy here and Szayel very much wanted his son gone from this room, as quickly as possible, no matter the cost.

“Yes,” he answered without an ounce of hesitation.

“Very well,” Aizen agreed. “Abisara-kun, you are dismissed. I look forward to seeing the new portable devices. How long do you think it will take to make them?”

“A week, maybe longer if the components give me issues,” Abisara answered after thinking about it for a moment.

“Excellent. Inform me once they are completed. You may go. Why don’t you join your sister for some tea and sweets with my wife? Your bodyguard is waiting by the Palace gates, is he not?”

“Yes, ‘Ji-ji is waiting for us,” the boy replied dutifully, though he didn’t seem enthusiastic about leaving his father.

“Good. I am sure he is more than capable of escorting you and your sister home once your visit with my wife is over. Good evening, Abisara-kun.”

Aizen gestured with his hand, that the boy should follow the path the servant had taken with his sister. Szayel tried to give his son a look that would reassure the boy that he would be all right, but again, he wasn’t certain that he managed it. Szayel could see the smaller version of himself weighing whether or not to go and the Espada hardened his gaze, trying to convey to his son the importance of getting out of there in one piece.

To his great relief, he saw his son barely nod up at him before he turned back the menace that sat on the Throne.

“Kami-sama.”

Abisara bowed and retreated, though he did toss his father a worried look as he left.

If the first echoing bang of the doors closing had been a death knell, he had no idea what to call the second. He felt his chest tighten in fear as Aizen rose from his Throne and stalked towards him, his smile taking on a sinister edge now that it was just the two of them. His mouth was very dry now and his body was trembling. He flinched as Aizen rested a hand on his cheek.

“I will see you downstairs. Do make sure to bathe first, it would seem you have slacked off in that regard in your desperation to appease me. I prefer my playthings to be as perfect as possible before I start moulding and decorating them.”

Unable to speak, he gave a terrified nod. He hardly needed an escort; he knew the way well enough. Try as he might, he couldn’t get his trembling under control. Gin was waiting for him in the basement. Neither one of them bothered exchanging words as the pale, gaunt man led him to a tub of water that was used as often to initiate the feeling of drowning as it was for cleaning. At least the water was hot and since he would already be naked, that meant his clothing would likely survive.

 _The punishment has to fit the crime. He won_ _’_ _t be too harsh on me tonight, right?_ he prayed to whatever real deity might be listening.

He knew Gin would already have a set of instructions as to what to do with him, so he let the silver-haired man direct him with hands alone. Once he’d washed and dried Szayel, Gin led him to the cot he hated most. He didn’t even bother resisting as Gin indicated that he was to lay down on the thing face-up and to cross his hands above his head. Gin didn’t restrain him, which surprised him. Then Aizen’s personal slave left the room, leaving Szayel alone in this chamber of nightmares, the only sound being that of his rapid, fearful breathing.

Aizen arrived sometime later, a malevolent grin on his face as he sauntered up to his victim, shedding his own clothing as he did so, not appearing to care where it landed. Aizen sat on the edge of the little bed before finally speaking.

“Ah my dear pet, it has been some time since I last enjoyed your flesh,” Aizen purred, gently letting his fingers trace the contours of Szayel’s face. “You mistress has done a good job keeping you out of trouble, and I find that I miss the playtime we once enjoyed.”

The hand moved to caress his neck, before turning into a single finger that trailed down his naked body.

Despite himself, he let out a little whimper, but at least managed to stay in the ordered position ‘Kami’ wanted. He understood what was going on now. Should he resist or fight, it would be nothing for Aizen to summon Abisara back.

 _On the other hand, having to watch Aizen rape me could be considered a form of punishment,_ he couldn’t help but to think dejectedly. He would sooner his children not be forced to witness such a thing.

The finger continued past his chest and down towards the nest of pink curls between his legs. It was so very hard to keep his hands crossed above his head and not curl up defensively, more so when Aizen started to rake his fingers through the still damp hairs.

“So, since this punishment was meant for your son, I suppose I shall hold back for now. As much as I so desire to see your blood splashed against your beautiful skin, I shall abstain from that… for now.”

Aizen finally moved fully onto the cot-like bed, settling his legs on either side of Szayel’s head. It was clear what the other wanted from his stance and Szayel accepted the flesh pressed against his lips, letting it into his mouth. Aizen was at least clean so he tasted like nothing. Truthfully, he would rather do this than have someone take him without any form of lube at all.

“Mmm… you are so talented,” Aizen hummed, softly thrusting his hips forward to obtain more friction. “I cannot wait for the day when your transgressions are great enough for me to strip you of your rank and titles.”

He didn’t dare dwell on such a thought and concentrated instead of trying to get Aizen off before he could do anything else to him this evening. It was unlikely, but one never knew. He could tell Aizen was close by the way the shaft his tongue lavished twitched; Szayel redoubled his efforts and let out a little whine when Aizen suddenly pulled his hips and his cock away from him.

“Yes, so very skilled.”

Aizen’s voice still sounded composed and that made things feel so much worse.

He braced himself for the pain and humiliation he knew was coming as Aizen shifted down his body. Aizen lifted Szayel’s legs to his shoulders and hooked his knees there, the Espada’s calves draped across his ruler’s back. Szayel squeezed his eyes shut and turned to face the wall, unwilling to witness this if he could avoid it.

It hurt when Aizen penetrated him, even with saliva coating the intruding appendage. He was simply too tight and Aizen too big for him to feel anything but pain. Aizen did, however, pause once he was fully seated, giving Szayel a brief amount of time to try to adjust. Aizen shifted his hips slightly, and then started thrusting into Szayel at an oddly sedate pace. It still hurt and he felt a small amount of tearing, but nothing compared to the agony he normally endured while the Shinigami used him.

He breathed heavily to try to get through the pain and started reciting the entire periodic table of elements in his head, complete with their atomic weights and their assigned letters. For once, Aizen permitted him to keep his eyes closed so that he could visualized the chart as well. His breathing never did even out fully, but he was able to get his body to relax enough that the pain wasn’t blinding and after a point, began to dull as the nerve endings overloaded and got used to the stimulus. Through it all, Aizen kept up a slow and steady pace. It was unlike anything he’d ever done before.

Szayel went through the table twice before he realized that this was exactly what Aizen had planned. Despite his best efforts, his eyes snapped open and he stared up at the man still thrusting leisurely into his body in shock. The movement began to get painful again as the saliva that acted as lube dried up. He felt parts of his insides tear further and another round of blood temporarily slicked Aizen’s member.

“My record with Gin was two and a half hours. How long do you think you can appease me?” Aizen asked with what Szayel swore was an insane glint to his brown eyes.

“I…I…” he stammered, horrified at the very thought of a never-ending bout of painful friction and damage.

He almost preferred the more violent use of his body to this. At least those rough sessions tended to end within an hour or two. However, to suffer like this for an entire night? The sad part was he didn’t doubt that Aizen had the stamina and mental discipline to pull off such a marathon torture session.

Aizen let Szayel’s legs fall from his shoulders and sat up before continuing. Szayel winced at the new angle and once more forced his eyes shut and turned his head away. He felt tears gather at corners of his closed eyelids and no amount of wishing prevented them from leaking out. Worse, he knew this wasn’t going to be the end. After all, Aizen had promised him Karin would bestow another round of punishment in the morning.

He’d carefully tucked Vindula and Abisara into bed and left them there, watched over by a very concerned Nemu. She did a good job hiding it, but Renji knew she had been just as upset as the rest of them over Aizen’s summons, and just as relieved as he was to get the children back home within the relative safety of Szayel’s Division.

Abisara had said only that his father had volunteered to accept punishment for his own failings while Vindula had gone on excitedly about how nice Unohana-sama was and how beautiful both the palace and the gardens were. In fact, she wanted to share everything with Yumi-san, the one who had originally introduced her to everything pretty. She complained about never getting to see her ‘Silk Prince’ as she’d nicknamed him.

He’d kept his mouth shut about that, though he did wonder what she might have thought of Ayasegawa Yumichika, the 11th Division’s 5th Seat in the days when he’d sported the same bloodthirsty grin as Madarame Ikakku and Kenpachi Zaraki and the same blood splatters after a battle. Damn the man and his silks and teacakes for corrupting Vindula.

Renji turned his thoughts away from that messed up situation before he could dwell too long on it and back on the spectacularly fucked-up situation in his lap at present. Nemu was the one helping Abisara get over his guilt for leaving his father to take his punishment and that left Renji to work out his frustration and stress by speed walking through the halls. He had never felt as terrified as he did when those two beautiful, wonderful children walked through Aizen’s gates, leaving him to stew in the shadows outside like a chained mutt. As much as he hated the way Aizen had referred to him, maybe the ‘dog’ metaphor was appropriate. The redhead had tracked both Abisara and Vindula like a bloodhound, his entire body twitching and ready to move at the slightest indication of trouble.

He had never been that good at detecting reiatsu, but he had always been able to follow the twins, to find them even from a distance. He’d almost barged in when he had felt Abisara’s minor distress and had only stopped himself from doing something rash because Zabimaru had intervened, sharply growling at him to calm down and pointing out that the boy’s upset was hardly at a level that would indicate a serious problem.

 _A pity it_ _’_ _s so damn late. I could really blow off some steam with Grimmjow right about now,_ he thought.

The Espada had offered to let him do so after an incident the previous year that he would rather not recall. He’d shown up at the Ukitake Estate a few times after that and the two had gone out for a few Bankai vs. Resurrección sparring sessions, but this late at night Grimmjow would probably be sleeping, if not doing _other_ things with Karin. No one here could even hope to spar on him at the level he wanted, other than Nemu and right now her children needed her more than he did. This left him with a great deal of steam under his collar and no one or way to vent it. The hallway patrol wasn’t doing much for him either.

 _For fuck_ _’_ _s sake, the children are safe. I should be relieved, not anxious,_ he cursed inwardly, a scowl marring his features and unwittingly sending two passing scientists scurrying out of his way in fear.

Eventually, he made his way to one of the staff break rooms, where paper bags that could contain either a researcher’s lunch or a deadly viral experiment filled the refrigerator. Grumbling to himself, he poured a cup of something dark and black into a paper cup from one of several pots sitting on Bunsen burners, all of them plugged into an electrical strip that housed too many plugs and not enough outlets.

He’d hoped it was just strongly brewed tea.

It wasn’t.

Gagging, he sputtered and forced the coffee down, feeling the stuff start to eat away at his teeth before he gave up and tried to find a box of sugar to pour into it. About halfway into his search of the cabinets and after finding only a few orange ceramic mugs with the phrase ‘Dattebayo!’ stencilled on them, he let his forehead rest against one of the wall cabinet doors and finally admitted to himself what he would have denied up and down a year ago.

_Dammit, I_ _’_ _m actually worried about the pink-haired freak._

His road to reconciliation, if one could call the state of detente that existed between them ‘reconciliation’, with Szayel had been very, very rocky, and contained a lot of resentment and anger. It wasn’t until after Abisara and Vindula were born that he began to let go of a bit of that hatred. There had been a few spectacular relapses as well, but Renji liked to think they’d both reached a point where they at least had their love of Szayel’s children in common. He was pissed right now because all he could see was what Szayel had looked like when Aizen had summoned him to pick his ‘master’ up after the last time the sick fuck had used the scientist as a plaything. There had been so much blood… even at his worst, Szayel had never put Renji, or anyone else in the Science Division, through the kind of trauma the Espada endured at Aizen’s hands.

_I saw a lot of shit in the Rukongai, but that_ _…_ _that was over the top. He could be going through it again, right now, all for the sake of keeping Abisara from_ _…_ _from_ _…_

Renji couldn’t even finish the sentence in his head, as the images it conjured up were too horrifying for his brain to want to process. Instead, he concentrated on the energy he could feel glimmering around him, a greenish-gold lifeline, to try to banish the ugly fears his imagination had created. Latching on to Nel’s Claim, he managed to get the stabbing, panicky feeling under control and his train of thoughts back to reality, rather than whatever he feared Aizen would do to Szayel’s son.

Instead, he needed to consider what Aizen might be doing to Szayel.

For every foul thing that he had once had to say about the Espada, he had never felt that Szayel was a bad parent. In fact, Szayel was a father who cared deeply for his children, even if he did have a few questionable moral and ethical standards. The one thing that he and Szayel had always seen eye to eye on it was the twins’ safety.

Three hours passed since he had returned home with the twins, and there was still no summons for Renji to come pick up his ‘master’, or any sign of Szayel himself. As three hours turned to four, and then jumped to six, Renji found he could barely contain himself anymore. It had been over eight hours now. The children had spent two hours at the Palace, thankfully most of it with Unohana, before she’d escorted them to the gates personally. From what little he knew of the history between Szayel and Aizen, Aizen had never kept the Seventh Espada at the Palace this long. Something was definitely wrong.

That and there was no more coffee left. Renji felt unusually jittery, his stomach bitched at him and the combination made him want to punch a wall for the sole purpose of watching the plaster crack.

“Fuck it,” he cursed aloud, tossed the cup into the break room trash and stormed out of the building before launching himself into a Shunpo.

Grimmjow was Szayel’s ‘master,’ and if anyone would know what was happening to the scientist, it would be the Sixth. This late at night, or early in the morning depending on which way one wanted to look at it, there was no way Karin and Grimmjow would be doing anything but sleeping. He was through the gate and banged on the door of the Ukitake Estate the moment he reached it and didn’t stop until a very pissed off Lilynette yanked it open.

“Do you have any idea how fucking late it is?” she snapped and scowled at him.

“I need to talk to Grimmjow,” he demanded.

“He isn’t here. He’s got night patrol,” she answered, crossing her arms and glaring at him.

Well that sucked ass, Renji thought. He considered asking for Karin, but wasn’t sure she could do anything even though she was technically Szayel’s ‘owner.’ While he debated over it, Lilynette spoke up once more.

“What’s got your panties in a wad anyway?”

“Szayel was summoned to the Palace and it’s been over eight hours since he walked in,” he answered honestly. “He hasn’t come out yet.”

A frown crossed Lilynette’s face. The little Arrancar closed her one eye and she seemed to be mulling something back and forth before she opened the door all the way and let him in.

“Come on,” she ordered.

Numbly, he followed her. He expected her to lead him to Karin’s room, but instead he watched, shocked, as she opened the door of what turned out to be a bedroom and literally jumped on top of someone curled up under rumpled pile of blankets.

“Oi, Starrk, wake up!” Lilynette shouted, continuing to jump on and kick the bundle until a very sleepy-looking Starrk sat up, running his hands through mussed up hair.

“What is it Lilynette?” Starrk asked with a loud yawn.

“Stop acting so gross, we got company,” she complained, hitting him over the head with her fist.

“Eh?”

Starrk, blinking, looked Renji’s way. Lilynette hooked her thumb at the Shinigami.

“He says Aizen summoned Szayel over eight hours ago and the Seventh ain’t back yet.”

All signs of sleepy stupidity were suddenly gone from Starrk’s face as his eyes focused on a glowering Lilynette. Then he let out a long sigh.

“What do you want me to do about it?” he asked.

“I don’t know! Something! Anything! Maybe bring Karin with you and go get him. Aizen promised that anything concerning Szayel would be run past her too.”

Lilynette promptly kicked Starrk again and shoved her face close to his, not bothering to control the volume of her voice as she yelled at the other.

“Aizen’s being’ sneaky again!”

Starrk reached down, scratched his ribs, and once more turned his attention towards Renji, scrubbing his face with his hand.

“What’s going on?” he asked the man hanging on to the doorjamb.

Hesitantly at first, but quickly gaining momentum, Renji stood in the doorway and explained what he knew to Starrk. Starrk listened silently, nodding his head in a few places, before drawing his knees up to his chest and throwing his arms across the top of his bent limbs.

“There is nothing we can do about it Lilynette,” Starrk stated, which didn’t seem to sit too well with his other half.

“We have to be able to do something!” Lilynette retorted. “What if he does something like he did to Shiro-chan? Szayel is Karin’s pet, a gift from Grimmjow, so why is Aizen even touching him in the first place?”

Renji absently noted that Lilynette failed to attach any honorific’s to Aizen’s name, and he wondered what had happened to cause her to lose so much faith, although he had a feeling that it had something to do with Ukitake-Taichou, considering the context of their current argument.

“Lil, Szayel is taking the hits intended for Abisara,” Starrk tried to explain, until his smaller companion made a rude gesture that was clearly meant to cut off her partner.

“Not good enough!” Lilynette shouted, stomping her foot down like a child having a temper tantrum. “We finally have friends Starrk, people who can stand to be near us! I don’t want to lose that,” she snuffled and folded her arms across her flat chest, sounding close to frustrated tears.

“Besides, you know _Aizen_ wasn’t the one to give us this pack, no matter what he promised us. That was _Hana_ _’_ _s_ father. Grimm’s part of it, whether he likes to admit it or not and that _makes_ it _our_ business Starrk!”

Starrk let out a weary grunt before rising to his feet and heading towards the nearby closet to throw something on other than the sheet he had clutched around his hips. Renji watched the show in silence, a part of him memorizing the entire conversation and the information he had learned to pass onto Nel the next time she visited. Clearly, both halves of the Primera, or at least the smaller, fouler-mouthed half, were rapidly losing whatever allegiance they had to Aizen. To Renji, discovering such a tidbit of information was like discovering a diamond mine under the bathroom tiles. Starrk and Lilinette had taken down two of their strongest during the war. The loss of such support would severely weaken Aizen’s forces, and pull Jushiro and Nanao out of the picture as potential enemies.

Lilynette wasn’t finished either, sounding both angry and distraught.

“All his promises are like shiny apples on the outside, but inside they’re all worms.”

Her other half scratched his scalp, looking for all the world like all he wanted to do was tunnel back under the blankets. Instead, his hands began wrapping his obi around his waist.

“C’mon. Let’s go wake up Karin, assuming she isn’t already awake,” Starrk ordered the girl as he tied his obi and shrugged on his jacket. Renji stepped out of the way to let them exit the bedroom and followed in their wake, Starrk a silent form gliding ahead of a grumbling Lilynette.

Karin was awake, and fully dressed. In fact, she told them to enter before they even knocked on her door. She must have also been waiting for word from Szayel because Renji could think of no other reason why she would still be up or have such a haunted look on her face. She knew of the summons since she had been there when Aizen had declared it. Clearly, the fact that Szayel hadn’t reported in to her yet kept her up as well.

Still, she listened to Renji repeat the story once more, and she used some incredibly foul language as he concluded. Apparently, she hadn’t anticipated this happening either. With all of the delays, it was fast approaching nine hours and the uneasiness in the room grew as the minutes ticked by on the clock on the table in the corner.

“Starrk-san, can you think of any reasonable punishment that Aizen would have given Abisara that would last this long?” she asked. The lanky Espada scratched his chin as he gave it some thought.

“Nothing comes to mind,” he confessed. “Not for something that small.”

“Good,” she growled, before getting up and marching past them.

“What are you going to do?” Renji asked curiously, hauling himself to his feet as well. He offered a hand to Lilynette, who eyed it and him before taking it. The redhead pulled her up and she brushed off her bottom before turning to Karin as well. The human woman had paused in the doorway, her expression as dark as a thundercloud and twice as angry-looking.

“I’m going to get my property back, for starters,” she growled possessively, “and maybe give Aizen a piece of my mind while I am at it.”

“Karin,” Starrk warned her. “Think carefully.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she replied and took a couple of gulps of air to try to regain her calm.

Renji didn’t blame her for wanting to go and tear out the sonofabitch’s eyes with a garden rake. He felt the same way. His temper had cooled now that the odd little group had decided to do something about it. Provided, of course, that there was something they could do about in the first place. If not, they might end up suffering along with Szayel if Aizen felt like flexing his muscles.

At least he wasn’t the only one thinking about such a scenario. Lilynette shrugged around him and when Starrk gained his feet and stretched, the girl looked up at him expectantly, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

“Ya gonna need me, Starrk?”

Renji watched as the taller half of the First put a hand on her head, carefully avoiding the horn on her helmet-like bone fragment and ruffled her pale green hair a little.

“Stay here. Wait for Grimmjow and send him our way. You’ll know if I need you.”

Then he turned his blue-gray eyes to Renji and gestured towards the doorway.

“After you.”

Renji nodded and made to follow Karin, or at least try to catch up to her.

 _Please, for Abisara and Vindula_ _’_ _s sake, let their father be in one piece,_ he prayed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers: he's not in one piece.


	36. A Single Seed

The guards admitted them into the Palace despite the early hour without too much fuss. Starrk’s presence turned out to be the deciding factor there. The two Arrancar guards at the gate didn’t seem as if they wanted to give any grief to the most powerful Arrancar known to exist. Since Renji, to his consternation, was the only one that knew the specific pathway to Aizen’s torture chamber, the ex-Fukutaichou led them down into the basement.

At least Szayel’s reiatsu was stable, and the emotions Karin had received so far, while unpleasant, were hardly the sharp spikes of terror he normally exhibited when Aizen decided to play with him. If anything, what he sent her were waves of choking despair as opposed to the usual fright and anguish.

That wasn’t much of a relief, as she had never felt hopelessness like this from him before, let alone for nine hours.

There were three people in the room Renji lead them towards, and she didn’t need to be in the room, thanks to her ‘sight,’ to know what was going on. Aizen sat a short distance away, obviously overseeing the proceedings. Karin had an ugly suspicion about what they were about to walk in on, given how closely Gin’s and Szayel’s reiatsu were, as well as Aizen’s propensity for voyeurism.

The door to the ‘playroom’ was open and she heard Renji gasp as they walked through the doorway. Her suspicions proved true; Aizen sat on his little throne with his head resting on his palm and an amused smile on his face while he watched Gin thrust into an unmoving Szayel. His unsheathed Zanpakuto lay across his lap, its edge facing his knees and all three men were naked. She tried not to look, she really did, but her eyes zeroed straight to the large length between Aizen’s legs. It sickened her to see he was fully erect with his lap and cock stained with both cum and blood.

Karin mentally recited every curse she had ever learned from Grimmjow, made up a few on the spot, and called Aizen so many foul names in her head that it was a good thing that he was incapable of reading her thoughts. Renji did curse aloud, although he at least had the smarts to do it under his breath. The only one who seemed undisturbed was Starrk, but Karin could see that even his reiatsu flared in anger at the sight that met their eyes.

Karin had cleaned up and bandaged Szayel after these sessions, but bearing witness to it, to see it with her own eyes, was something completely different. The wet sound of flesh slapping against flesh and the metallic scent of blood in the air was so disturbing and disgusting that she probably would have thrown up had there been anything in her stomach to do so.

Szayel didn’t glance their way and Karin received no wave of sudden mortification from him upon their intrusion. Aizen’s Zanpakuto rested in his lap and she deduced Szayel couldn’t see them, caught up as he was in one of Aizen’s illusions.

While Szayel couldn’t see them, Aizen could, unfortunately.

“Karin, I didn’t expect you for another hour or two.”

Aizen smiled at her, as if their entrance didn’t bother or surprise him in the least. “Had I known you were coming earlier, I would have made myself more presentable.”

“What the Hell are you doing to him?” Renji demanded, marching towards the two men, as if he intended to pull Gin off Szayel.

Aizen’s displeased gaze turned towards the redhead, who staggered and then collapsed to the stone floor as the overbearing weight of Aizen’s reiatsu crashed into him, pinning him in place. ‘Kami’ made a ‘tsk-tsk’ sound and his eyes regarded Renji as if someone had let something unsavoury through the door.

“I will have to remind Szayel to keep a better muzzle and leash on his pet pooch,” Aizen sighed. “Obviously, the whipping didn’t register. Perhaps we’ll try something stronger if he can’t stop barking.”

The arrogant smile with which he regarded the younger Shinigami made Karin think it was the most honest expression the bastard had put on his face in a long time.

Renji looked like he was about to toss out some sort of nasty comeback, but suddenly snapped his mouth shut and settled for glaring viciously at the man on the throne. Karin prayed he’d stay that way. Anything Renji might say in this situation would just make things worse. Aizen saw this and laughed.

“Hmm, still rough, but I must say I am impressed with what little training Szayel has managed to pound into you.”

The hate in Renji’s gaze could have melted steel, but he did manage to keep silent, although Karin swore she could hear the sound of him grinding his teeth from here.

Aizen shifted his gaze to Starrk, who was still the only one keeping a nonchalant attitude. Karin was barely keeping her own tongue in check, but it was hard, more so because Gin still hadn’t stopped thrusting into Szayel even though the silver haired man had briefly glanced their way, indicating to her that, even though Szayel could not, Gin could see them.

Gin, in her opinion, looked as if he wanted to be anywhere but here.

“What could Abisara possibly have done that would warrant this kind of punishment?” Karin finally spat out, barely keeping from screaming the question in her frustration.

“That is none of your concern.”

Aizen made an airy, gesture at her, as if he expected her to leave him to his recreation with that. Instead, a new voice echoed through the room and this one, masculine and less than happy, wasn’t as easily ignored.

“Forgive me Kami-sama, but in our society, since Karin owns Szayel, everything he owns is technically hers as well.”

Starrk spoke with an edge that belied the weariness. “That includes his children, his mate… and Red here.”

Aizen’s gaze shifted back to Starrk as he jutted his chin towards the spot where Aizen had Renji restrained, and even Karin felt surprise that the lazy Espada had spoken up in their defence.

“Did you plan this,” and here the First’s storm cloud eyes swept over the blood, the cot, and the rest of the signs of sexual torture, the room itself, “for the boy or for Szayel?”

Starrk’s question carried with it a heavy silence that almost managed to smother the sounds that Gin produced as he shoved repeatedly into the Seventh Espada. His tone was graver, darker and there was no mistaking Starrk’s displeasure this time as he waited for an answer. It also carried with it some inherent trouble for Aizen, depending on how he chose to answer it. Emboldened by Starrk, Karin let her own anger show.

“Just what kind of punishment were you thinking of giving Abisara?”

She couldn’t help the cold hostility that showed in her words, bringing Aizen’s attention back her way. She could tell that he was irritated that they’d interrupted his leisure activity, but he finally gave a signal to Gin that the other took as a sign he could finish.

“Sleep deprivation.” Aizen replied smoothly, “However, I would have used a different… method to keep dear Abisara-kun awake.”

‘Kami’ leaned back on his throne, unconcerned with his nudity, looking not at Karin but at Starrk, as if to answer the Espada’s loaded question. Starrk, for his part, scratched the back of his neck, though his eyes didn’t stop flickering around the room, at times resting on some of the more horrendous-looking hooks and devices.

The wet, slapping noises sped up and it didn’t take long after that for the slave to come to a shuddering finish. Gin was quick to untangle his body from Szayel’s, his groin stained with cum and a few splashes of blood. Szayel hardly moved and continued to lay there, his body still quivering, golden eyes glassy and unseeing. Gin may have stopped, but Aizen seemed intent on keeping the illusion going for a while. Aizen snapped his fingers and Gin turned towards their ruler, the picture of scarred subservience.

“Take our ‘guests’ to my Throne room, and then go clean yourself up. My wife should be awake soon, so see to it that she is properly attended,” Aizen ordered, rising to his feet, his blade in one hand and the saya in the other.

Gin bowed and indicated they should follow him, appearing oblivious to his own nudity. Aizen finally let Renji up off the floor with a derisive wave and Karin thanked whoever might be listening that he stayed quiet while he got to his feet, even though she would probably agree with every invective that would spew from the redhead’s mouth. His reiatsu was a red, rage-filled tornado and she had no doubt hers looked the same.

If there was anything good about this situation, it was that Renji appeared to have dropped the worst of his vendetta against Szayel, if the fact that he’d been the one to come looking for Grimmjow and Starrk was any indication of at least a changed perspective. She didn’t want to have to contend with any more grudges against the scientist right now.

Karin was the last one out of the room, and she couldn’t help but to glance back in time to see Aizen take Gin’s place. She paused and watched as Aizen sheathed his Zanpakuto and shattered the mirage he’d inflicted on Szayel. It was so very difficult to turn around and keep walking and she found herself gnashing her teeth in frustration. She was surprised that she had any teeth left, after fifteen years under Aizen’s thumb.

She passionately hated Aizen. If she had the power, she would strip the flesh from the bastard’s bones and grind the pieces into dust so fine that the slightest breeze would scatter it. Then she would salt the earth that had absorbed the blood and spit on it until the whole thing was nothing but a disgusting mud pit.

Yet none of them could do anything but to pick up the shattered pieces after every twisted act Aizen chose to commit. Intervening would only guarantee that they would share a similar fate, and that would hardly alleviate anyone’s suffering. Not even Starrk and Lilynette, for all of their mind-numbing power, could stand up against Aizen for long and hope to live. If they did survive the fight, death would probably be preferable to what Aizen would do to them. If Ulquiorra and Grimmjow joined in the fight, Aizen needed only to lift a finger to pin them down and walk all over them. For the first time since the Swarm suggested it to her, Karin seriously considered taking the Spirit King’s Throne to cut Aizen off from that decisive bit of power.

Initially, she thought the idea foolish. Even if she did take away one of Aizen’s many assets, it wouldn’t be enough to cripple him significantly. They required help to succeed. Despite knowing the odds, Karin began to take a mental tally of who might be willing to overthrow Aizen. She wasn’t familiar with anyone in Yoruichi’s group, other than her brother and Kuchiki Rukia, but of the potential allies in the Soul Society, she was surprised to discover that the combined strength of those she considered open to sedition might be a match for Aizen, _if_ Aizen lost the power of the Throne.

 _There might actually be a chance,_ she realized.

Aizen had deliberately weakened himself over the years, in an effort to bring his reiatsu levels low enough to impregnate Unohana without risk to the egg. If Starrk, Ulquiorra, Grimmjow, and Jushiro combined their strengths with that of the Escapees, it might just be enough. While Karin wasn’t sure whether Harribel would be an ally, she knew that the Third had disagreed with a few of Aizen’s decisions in the last few years. Convincing her and her household to join them would get Toshiro on their side as well.

That would leave the others, like Nanao, Nemu, Renji, herself and Szayel, to deal with any assistance the other Espada might want to give Aizen, if they decided to lift a finger at all. From what she had learned over the years, she doubted Barragan would help Aizen. Despite Karin’s hatred of the Second, Barragan might even help, if it meant he could have his precious ‘kingship’ back in Hueco Mundo.

For the first time, she gave the idea of organizing a rebellion some real consideration, and damn the Swarm.

_But that is a problem. Such a battle would ravage Soul Society, and we would fall quickly to the Swarm. So many innocents would die. Unless, of course, I could get the Swarm to pull back once they installed me in the Spirit King_ _’_ _s Palace. I get the impression that they are only here to kill Aizen and restore balance, if what the General said was true._

There were other obstacles as well. Things would not miraculously fix themselves if Aizen were to die. Too many Arrancar held too many Claims and civil war would be inevitable should something happen to their current overlord. Some might be willing to let their Claims go, but most probably would not. Aizen was the main reason so many Arrancar had taken up residence in the Soul Society. With him gone, many might scatter, returning to Hueco Mundo or other parts of Soul Society and take their slaves with them. Some might even revert to their previously violent behaviour towards their pets without Aizen’s threats hanging over their heads. They could also Claim more people, depending on the power levels involved. Conceivably, such a situation would turn friend against friend in a vicious fight over territory.

_I have to tread this path lightly and carefully. If Aizen learned that someone was planning a coup, I don_ _’_ _t want to think about what he would do to the conspirators._

Karin put all of her seditious thoughts on the back burner for now, but vowed to revisit them soon and discuss them with those in whom she felt she could confide, like Szayel who was probably more than ready to throw off Aizen‘s yoke and her mate. Oddly enough, Yoruichi was chief among those she felt she could trust with something like this. Of course, a lot of this depended on what sort of firepower the Escapees had at their disposal, and whether that might be enough to close the gap between themselves and Aizen. They also needed to get Aizen out of the city or the battle would slaughter thousands and undo the tenuous balance the Realms had achieved.

 _Maybe, if all the Escapees showed up in one place, it would tempt Aizen into confronting them himself,_ she pondered, before shoving that aside as well.

They had arrived back in the Throne room while she had been lost in thought. Renji set right to pacing and cursing violently under his breath. Gin had left to clean his soiled body and Karin felt a wave of pity for the man forced to participate in such heinous things. Starrk was still the only one who seemed to be maintaining his cool and sleepy facade, but Karin could see the anger that wove in and out of his reiatsu. She could not recall _ever_ seeing Starrk even the slightest bit upset, although he’d probably looked much like this after he learned of Aizen’s assault on Jushiro.

“Karin, what are you doing here?”

Karin turned to see Grimmjow stomping up to them. She blinked and then realized he must have gotten back from his patrol only to have Lilynette inform him that she was here. Karin moved over to mould her body against his and quickly filled him in on what was going on. She felt him go rigid with anger as he listened and a bit of his own rage echoed through their Claim to add to hers.

He gave a nod of his head hidden under the pretence of nuzzling her neck, before stepping away and approaching the other two.

“Scram, Red,” he ordered Renji sternly. “I’ll deal with you later. Go home and cover for him with his cubs.”

Renji opened his mouth to snarl out a protest, but something flashed between the two men’s eyes, and after a moment Renji nodded and left, or rather stormed out, slamming the room’s doors behind him with a surprising amount of force. That was at least one less volatile temper in the room, although Karin had to admit she had been hoping Renji would let loose on Aizen, if only to hear aloud what the rest of them were thinking.

Not a minute after Renji was gone, Aizen walked in, looking as immaculate as ever, as if he hadn’t just been violently forcing himself upon another. Szayel, naked and bloody, thighs glistening with cum, stumbled in his wake. The Espada failed to notice them at first and appeared to be in a state of shock. It looked as if he had mentally withdrawn at some point in the evening to protect himself from the abuse done to him.

Karin felt all of her anger surge forward, and much of it came from Grimmjow. His current state was better than what she had seen in the past, but there was enough blood to know the activities in the playroom had torn him up. His eyes blearily drifted their way as the fog in them cleared and he flushed in mortification, as well as sent a wave of relief at her as he realized he was no longer alone with his oppressor.

Aizen casually walked up the dais to his throne and sat down, turning his gaze towards those gathered with that horrendous, false smile of his, as if they were all there to enjoy a cup of tea together.

“Since you are here already Karin, why don’t we start with enacting Szayel’s half of the punishment,” Aizen suggested.

“No.”

All eyes turned to face the one who had dared speak, and Aizen’s smile almost seemed to fade a fraction.

It came from Grimmjow.

“It was enough being distracted during my patrol. You cannot possibly tell me Abisara, a five-year-old kid, did something to warrant this much punishment. As far as I am concerned, being fucked by you and that puppet of yours is enough,” the Sixth declared, his lips curling into a snarl. “Unless you really did mean to bugger a child and that was what you chose for Abisara…”

“I, regrettably, must concur,” Starrk agreed with a note of irritation in his voice, not at Aizen per say, but at being forced to agree with Grimmjow and oppose Aizen.

Karin saw Aizen’s reiatsu darken slightly, even though the thrum and feel of it didn’t change. However, he did a good job of hiding his surprise and displeasure at the sudden opposition to his orders. If fact, had Karin not been able to see Aizen’s reiatsu in the brief moment he let his control slip, she would never have known he’d been surprised in the first place.

The tension in the room was thick enough to cut with Pantera. Karin hadn’t expected Grimmjow to speak up in Szayel’s defence, and she hadn’t expected Starrk to say anything after he’d asked for clarification in the basement. Then again, Aizen hadn’t expected them to defend the Seventh either. This looked as if it was going to be an uncomfortable and possibly dangerous morning. She just prayed the two men knew what they were doing.

Szayel knew he’d slipped into shock at some point during the night. Knowing about it didn’t make it any easier to combat or overcome. He suspected Aizen’s Zanpakuto was in use, because there was simply no way that Aizen could last this long without a cock ring and Aizen wasn’t wearing one. Still, knowing about it did nothing to mitigate the pain he was in, nor was there any way to break the presumed illusion.

 _Not even Aizen could physically perpetuate a rape for this long,_ he thought bleakly.

He might be under the influence of Aizen’s Kyōka Suigetsu, but he also had little doubt that Aizen, or perhaps Gin, had repeatedly violated him as well, probably taking turns. The illusion most likely served to make his current assailant appear to be Aizen. At least, he hoped that was what was going on, just as he hoped that Gin was the only other being involved in this travesty. The thought of anyone else, particularly any Arrancar, seeing him like this made him shiver. The alternative, that Aizen had steadfastly raped him for hours on end without stopping, was just too much to take. It had to be an illusion.

He finally felt hot cum fill him and Aizen pulled away. His suspicions were confirmed when he noted the sheer amount of cum staining his thighs, but it hardly made the evening any easier to accept.

 _I wonder how much time has passed,_ he thought dully as Aizen finally stood up.

He remained on the bed, barely daring to breathe and not moving until someone informed him that he could. When Aizen came back into sight, he was once more his immaculate self.

“Come along pet. It’s time to receive _your_ punishment,” Aizen smiled darkly at him.

Szayel shuddered and he forced himself to his feet. He was stiff from being in a single position for so many hours, his muscles cramped and trembled and his ass hurt. It wasn’t the worst he’d felt after Aizen was finished with him, but he certainly wasn’t comfortable by any means. The near-river of semen that ran down his legs was actually worse; the evidence confirmed that the two men had had him multiple times. Rather, Aizen had had him and had forced Gin to do the same. The night he’d just endured was one, long blurred mess, so he had no idea who had done what to him, exactly.

“Do not bother dressing, because you won’t need your clothes,” Aizen ordered as Szayel bent down to grab his uniform, still folded on the floor where he’d left it.

He reluctantly let the material of his uniform fall from limp fingers and followed Aizen up to the throne room. They passed a few patrols and various eyes looked at him, assessing his strength. The few non-Arrancar servants they passed averted their gazes and did their best to remain unnoticed, but the Arrancar gave him measuring looks, as if wondering whether they could take him out and earn his position. Aizen ignored it all as they walked towards the throne room and the audience chamber.

He wasn’t surprised to see Karin there, and even Grimmjow’s presence failed to shock him, although he couldn’t help the humiliated feeling he got when he realized how vulnerable and damaged he appeared. What did confound him was why Starrk was with them, but he was too sleep-deprived and muddled to dwell on the Primera’s presence. Instead, he tried to brace himself for even more torment, this time delivered by Karin.

Grimmjow spoke up, all but shouting ‘No.’ at Aizen with regard to any additional penalties, pulling Szayel out of his exhausted stupor. The scientist gaped at his supposed ‘owner.’ Then Starrk opened his mouth, backing Grimmjow up and making it clear that nothing more would happen to Szayel today. He stared at the two higher-ranking Espada, dumbfounded. Even Karin looked astonished, meaning that she obviously hadn’t expected them to jump to his defence either. He could also taste the heavy anxiety in the room as they all waited for Aizen to respond to the collective challenge. It was so thick that Szayel worried he might drown in it, as its oppressive quality made it hard to breathe.

Szayel felt Aizen’s eyes fall upon him and flinched heavily. It was as if Aizen blamed him for the others’ defence and defiance.

“Hmm, perhaps you’re correct,” he said thoughtfully, sitting back on his throne and crossing his legs. “You must forgive me for getting carried away. I lost track of the time.”

The tyrant offered them an apologetic smile that no one believed held any remorse.

He couldn’t believe it. Aizen was letting them go. Why? It didn’t feel like Aizen was backing down. If anything, it felt like Aizen was highly amused at them, as if he were watching a dog chase its tail. Then he felt something drape over his shoulders, fabric by the feel of it. He looked down to see the front of Starrk’s jacket, and his hand reached out to clutch the two halves of the front closed. Thankfully, it was long enough to cover his privates at least.

“C’mon,” Grimmjow muttered at him as he grabbed one of Szayel’s arms and Karin took the other. “Let’s go.”

He didn’t resist as they led him out of the Palace. It was still dark but there were streaks of pink and lavender on the eastern horizon. He had no idea he had been there so long. His first concern was his children. The desperate need for a shower was a close second.

“Kids?” he murmured.

“Home, safe and sound,” Karin answered. “Renji took care of them and when you didn’t come back, he came and got me and Starrk.”

While that surprised Szayel, he was too tired to spend a lot of mental energy on it. Assured that his offspring were safe, his mind quickly returned to the locked in, sleep deprived stupor he‘d been held in for who knew how many hours. So deep into it was he that he failed to realize that they hadn’t taken him back the Science and Research Division, but to Starrk’s den instead. There was a brief argument between Karin and Grimmjow, but he couldn’t make out the words as he stood, swaying. Karin left him and Grimmjow, no doubt to go back to bed. The latter led him to what he assumed was a spare room since the air in it felt a little stale, as if it hadn’t been used in a very long time. His blue-haired superior all but shoved him into the shower in the adjoining bathroom and Szayel stumbled before catching himself against the tiles on the back wall. Grimmjow’s gruff instruction followed him into the bath.

“Clean yourself up before Ajuga wakes up and scurries in here to see if you’re all right. Then get your ass to bed.”

“I can’t. I have too much work to do,” he protested weakly, the fear he could hear in his voice making him feel pathetic. It was true. He did have too much to do and not enough time to do it.

“That wasn’t a request,” Grimmjow stated and marched out, leaving Szayel leaning against the wall of the shower.

The scientist had no strength left and slid to the floor. He sat there for a moment before working the jacket off and reaching up to turn on the tap. The hot water beating down on him helped stir him enough that he was able to scrub his thighs until they were bright red. It wasn’t the worst thing that Aizen had ever done to him, at least as far as pain and violence. No new carved kanji graced his body and he didn’t require bandaging.

He finally forced his exhausted body to turn the water off and he hauled himself back to his feet and towelled himself until he was mostly dry. As he staggered out of the small bathroom, his eyes fell on the futon that someone had laid out for him while he’d tried to rid himself of Aizen’s latest ‘tribute.’

_Perhaps I should take a quick nap. I need to function at top capacity and I can_ _’_ _t do that, as sleep deprived as I am._

Then he paused as a thought occurred to him.

Aizen _had_ raped him, but not in the overly violent manner he’d come to expect from his tormenter. It had hurt and it was disgusting and degrading of course, but again, he’d suffered much worse treatment in the past. In fact, Aizen hadn’t even made him look at him or even acknowledge him.

“Son of a bitch…” Szayel cursed softly as he fell onto the futon, burying his face in a pillow as the reason for the ‘leniency’ became clear.

His real punishment hadn’t necessarily been the rape, which would be unreasonable for a child, but sleep deprivation. Aizen would assume he had been awake for the last three days desperately trying to find the solution to the radiation problem and used his own fatigue against him. The rape had simply been the method Aizen used to keep him awake, a freebie for the bastard to enjoy while walking a thin line as far as ‘punishments’ went.

Minor sleep deprivation was a fitting punishment for a child, the Hollow equivalent of a human sending a child to bed without supper.

As far as Szayel was concerned, Aizen was splitting hairs. The man had once promised him the finest laboratory in existence if Szayel would only work to ensure his victory. He had the laboratory, but the price for it kept going ever higher and Szayel’s willingness to keep paying what seemed like a never-ending toll had begun to erode. Aizen had threatened his children and that was unacceptable, even if those threats only served to get Szayel to engage in the perverted games Aizen wished to play. He simply could not let this escalate to the point where his son might actually become involved as well, or his daughter damaged as punishment.

Tomorrow… tomorrow, he would send a small team to collect the Garganta-creating device from the storage unit in Hueco Mundo, under the pretext of needing parts.

That was Szayel’s last thought as he finally let sleep take him, not bothering to crawl under the coverlet or bedding despite how chilly the air in the unused room was to his still-damp flesh. He simply didn’t have the energy to care anymore. When he did wake up, briefly, it was late afternoon and he found his body bundled warmly under the bed’s many blankets. Obviously, someone had checked up on him. Warm, comfortable and at least for the moment, safe, Szayel drifted off again, not even noticing the slight pull on his Claim.


	37. The First Domino Teeters

Ajuga woke to the sound of someone frantically pounding on the front door. Judging by the faint scent that the breeze carried into her room, that someone was Renji. She sat up intending to find out why the redhead was on their porch, but Lilynette beat her to it. There were few reasons she could think of for Renji to be here so late, and the only excuse she could imagine for him showing up without Abisara and Vindula involved something happening to Szayel. Only death could have pulled him away from his charges if they were in danger. That meant the twins had to be fine, probably safe with their mother if Ajuga were to hazard a guess.

She cloaked her reiatsu, a habit she’d gotten into when there was information to be had, in particular, the kind that made the adults around her censor themselves… or lie to her. Following Renji and Lilynette to Starrk’s room without either one noticing her shadowing them wasn’t hard. The hybrid girl stood outside the door, her sharp hearing easily allowing her to eavesdrop on their conversation.

Unfortunately, Ajuga nearly gave herself away as curiosity gave way to rage. Renji’s story wasn’t pretty, but she managed to wrestle her anger under control before she let her reiatsu flare and betray her. Instead, she retreated down the hall when they stood to exit the room. While she wasn’t worried about Renji, she didn’t want Starrk or Lilynette catching her and ordering her to her room, as if she was nothing more than an in-the-way child. She stayed one step ahead of them as she sprinted back to her family’s quarters, only to realize that they seemed bound for her parents’ bedroom. She quickly ducked into the sitting area to let them by, taking cover in the unlit room’s shadows as they passed. Only then did she make for her bedroom. If they were going to talk to her mother, it would be wise for her pretend to be asleep, lest Karin figure out she’d heard what Renji had to say.

As much as she’d wanted to follow her mother, the First and Renji when they’d finally given up on waiting and left for the Palace, Ajuga had to settle for pacing the grounds of the Estate. She could hide from everyone but Karin and as much as she wanted to charge to Szayel’s rescue with everyone else, she knew that going would only distract her mother. She even considered waking Jushiro up for some company to help her deal with the stress, but he needed to get what sleep he could. With the Swarm coming nearly every other day, the Taichou were overworked and exhausted. Waking Hana up wouldn’t work either, as her childhood playmate was in as bad a shape as ‘take-ji when it came to needing rest.

She had to settle for working off her frustrations by physical means. While it kept her busy, it didn’t make the waiting any easier and she’d made four laps of the entire Estate, her tail lashing in distress, before she detected her family’s return. Even better, her father was with them and they had Szayel in tow, though Renji was nowhere to be seen.

A wave of relief washed over her as Ajuga quickly made her way back to her room. She knew her mother would check for her and she didn’t want to get an earful for being up and about. The girl got the feeling that her mother was worried less about a lack of sleep on Ajuga’s part than she was worried that Ajuga might figure out what was going on. If that was the case, she was going to have to disappoint her mother. She could smell Szayel from here, his blood a sharp, metallic scent in her nose. The disgusting reek of Aizen’s cum, as well as Gin’s, made her want to tear out her sinuses and she had to pinch her nostrils shut. Breathing through her mouth was a little better. Her other hand clenched into a fist and shook as she tried to calm down before her mother detected any agitation to her reiatsu.

She tracked her parents, only creeping out of her room once her mother was back in her parents’ suite and her father had left the Estate. She had no idea where he’d gone, since he’d been up all night on patrol, but as long as he wouldn’t be back too soon, she’d be able to do what she wanted. Starrk had collapsed back into the futon and the pile of pillows and blankets he called a bed and Lilynette drifted off to wherever it was she bunked down.

Once the coast was clear, Ajuga moved stealthily though the hallways until she reached the spare room where her father had dumped Szayel. The nasty odour of abuse had faded, covered over with the strong smell of the soap he had used to scrub himself and the clean scent of running water.

“Szay?” Ajuga called softly.

The only answer she received was silence.

“Szay,” she called again after counting to ten before sliding the door open.

What she found both startled and dismayed her.

Szayel laid face down, naked and shivering on top of the futon, dead to the world. His damp skin and hair glistened with a few stray water droplets in the early morning light that seeped in under the short curtains. Being in the same room as him let her sensitive nose pick up the very faint scent of cum and she cursed foully under her breath while she crept closer.

Szayel didn’t even twitch as she pulled the blankets out from under him and tucked them around him, trying to make him more comfortable. She grabbed a towel and managed to get most of the water out of his still-soaked hair. Other than a bit of bruising she spotted around his rear, he seemed in relatively good health and the scent of blood was barely noticeable now that he’d bathed. It was nothing compared to what she had picked up on her mother in the past.

As he wasn’t going to answer any questions in his current state, she curled up next to him and caught up on the sleep she had lost fretting over him. The quality of her sleep was shallow at best. She remained poised to react the moment he stirred. Szayel slept well past lunch and when she awoke, it looked like he’d hardly moved at all. Ajuga reluctantly had to leave his side to make sure ‘take-ji got his medicinal tea before returning to her silent vigil.

 _Seems like I_ _’_ _ve done this a lot lately,_ she sighed to herself. _It_ _’_ _s getting old and troublesome._

That reminded her of Byakuya and she decided to crash the Kuchiki Estate later and make him spend some time with her, whether he wanted to or not. Ajuga would be damned if she were going to let him mope his life away, not if she could do something about it. All she could do right now involved helping him forget his woes for an hour or so while he instructed her in the calligraphic arts, if he allowed it. It was the last part that had proven tricky.

She’d had a little success coaxing him out from behind the high mental walls he’d deliberately and recently erected around himself. Ajuga had gone so far as to sneak into the Kuchiki Estate with her calligraphy kit and a sheaf of rice paper. His dead eyes briefly sparked in amusement while she nagged and lectured him into a teaching session. It had been going splendidly, until Yammy had returned home and Byakuya’s barriers went back up. Before he’d locked his psyche away, Ajuga swore she had never smelled such a strong wave of despair on another person and taking a cue, she’d hastily removed all evidence of her presence before Yammy could come in and break up their lesson himself.

The thing that truly frightened Ajuga was the gratitude that had briefly crossed his face as she’d scrambled away. He obviously didn’t want to be caught by his ‘master’ doing anything but waiting and the girl guessed that Byakuya might not just be afraid for himself.

 _Still, for that hour, he was his old self again. Or at least, he was the person I remember. I don_ _’_ _t know what that bastard Yammy did to him, but I WILL find a way to fix him,_ she vowed.

Her father returned around midafternoon, reeking of sweat, his own blood and, oddly enough, Renji’s blood as well, but not in any volume that made Ajuga believe the two were doing anything more than sparing. She shrugged it off as nothing more than her Papa and Renji dealing with some stress and her father’s good mood told her that the fight had been entirely voluntary.

“How’s he doing?” Grimmjow asked her as he strutted into the room.

“Still sleeping,” Ajuga sighed.

“Good,” he grunted and inspected a cut on his shoulder, peeking through the fabric to look at the wound beneath it. “Huh. Red’s getting faster with that whip of his…”

“You should probably take a shower before Mama gets home,” Ajuga suggested.

“Probably,” he agreed and grumbled a few words that sounded like ‘sneaky, tattooed baboon’ while he took in a bruise on his midriff.

“Papa?”

“Hmm?” Grimmjow paused on his way out the door.

“Why does Aizen hurt Szay so much?”

Her unhappy-sounding question made him pause, as if trying to figure out how to answer her. Then Grimmjow sighed and ran his fingers through his sweat and blood matted hair, his features darkening.

“I don’t know. Maybe because he’s a sick, twisted fu… uh… _guy_ ” he answered, suddenly correcting himself and looking down the hallway nervously.

Ajuga didn’t blame him. She had caught her mother’s scent just as her father was about to earn a tongue-washing. Karin did not appreciate foul language, and she had no problems smacking her mate up the side of the head to remind him of it. In fact, Ajuga couldn’t help but to remember the one time Karin had scrubbed both of their mouths out with soap when Ajuga had accidentally slipped up once, uttered a curse word and confessed she had learned the word from her father.

It turned out that cursing was the least of his troubles.

“Grimmjow, what in the hell…?”

Karin stood in the doorway and took in her mate’s bruised, bloodied and torn-up state. Her eyes narrowed dangerously and Ajuga tensed.

“Red and I just… ah… blew off some steam,” he replied, eyeing her mother warily. “He needed it. The guy was about ready to do something really dumb back there. Better with me than with Aizen.”

“Seriously? Can’t you two find some other way to work off your anger?”

Karin snapped this out, her voice thick with exasperation.

“Shhh! You’ll wake up Sleeping Beauty.”

Grimmjow gestured towards Szayel, still peacefully slumbering as Karin moved to the side of the bed. The admonishment served to temporarily divert her mother’s attention.

“Has he come around at all yet?” Karin asked worriedly.

Ajuga shook her head. “Nope, at least, not as long as I was here, but I was gone for about twenty minutes while I got ‘take-ji his tea and made sure that he and Byakuya-san stopped working long enough to get some lunch.”

“He’s probably been out the whole time,” Karin sighed and moved around the bed to sit next to Ajuga. Her mother checked his temperature, pulse and breathing rate and difficulty. The snoozing Espada’s condition apparently met with her mother’s approval, since she made a small, satisfied sound.

“He’s fine, just sound asleep. It’s no surprise. He was awake for the last four days straight. Ajuga, will you do a favour for me, and watch him while I go and tan your father’s unthinking hide for being an idiot?” Karin asked sweetly.

“Oi!” Grimmjow protested, while Ajuga’s eyes got a bit bigger.

“I’ll start on dinner after I’m done with him and I’ll have Lilynette let you know when supper’s ready,” her mother promised.

“Alright,” she easily agreed, thankful that she wasn’t the one in trouble this time.

Karin stood up and walked towards a quickly retreating Grimmjow, who held his hands up defensively as he backed away from his furious mate.

“Um, Mama?” Ajuga called just before her mother could leave the room. Karin paused while her father made a mad, if temporary, dash for safety.

“Hmm?”

“Can you keep the ‘tanning’ quiet? I don’t want to hear it, or smell it.”

Ajuga gave her a look of disgust. Karin laughed in response and shook her head.

“Sorry Ajuga, but this time I _am_ going to smack him,” her mother told her. “You’d think he would have learned the last time I chewed him out for dragging Abarai into an all-out brawl.”

Karin offered her daughter a conciliatory smile before as she launched herself into a Shunpo, disappearing in a small wave of wind. Ajuga listened intently and then shook her head as she heard the distant sound of flesh hitting flesh, followed quickly by her father yelping as her mother caught up to him. Of course, she knew her father had let her mother catch him; he was much faster than his mate after all. Still keeping up appearances seemed to be the order of the things around here lately.

Gods, there were times that she swore she’d never understand her parents’ relationship and there were other times she was glad she didn’t get why they did some of the things they did. Ignorance, she figured, really _was_ bliss at times.

Ajuga tried not to notice how her father grumbled at dinner that night, although there was no real heat behind it. Her mother acted pleased with herself and the rest of the household seemed bound and determined to ignore the situation entirely and valiantly tried not to snicker at the sulking Espada. Grimmjow’s sore hind end served as a distraction from the unspoken drama lingering around the dinner table.

There was still some strain between Hana, Starrk and Lilynette. Thankfully, some of the distance between the First and Hana had vanished in the week after Nanao’s daughter had returned home. Hana was telling an attentive Lilynette how her day had gone, with no sign of the uneasiness that had marked her first few days back. Ajuga was relieved that the situation was on its way to a resolution of sorts. She and Hana hadn’t talked much about it, but maybe that would change. Ajuga figured that Hana was probably right to work things out with Starrk and Lilynette first. She considered both girls ‘sisters’ and she didn’t like it when her family members, related by blood or not, weren’t getting along.

When she finished both dinner and her share of the clean-up duties, Ajuga went back to watching Szayel slumber. When the sun went down, the girl retrieved a few blankets and a pillow from her own room and made an impromptu nest on the floor, waking periodically throughout the night to see if he’d moved or showed any signs of distress.

Finally, a snort and the sound of a body stirring early the next morning roused her from her dreams. A rumpled Szayel, his hair in disarray and swathed in bedding like a caterpillar, looked around the obviously strange-to-him bedroom with no recognition in his bleary eyes. To Ajuga, he appeared to be much better. The dark smudges under his eyes were gone and he seemed coherent, if utterly confused as to his whereabouts.

“Morning Szay,” she greeted him cheerfully and he jumped, golden eyes training on her. Apparently, he hadn’t realized there was someone else in the room with him.

“Ajuga? Where am I?” he asked, perplexed. Ajuga grinned at him.

“You’re in one of the spare rooms at Starrk-ji and ‘take-ji’s Estate,” she answered promptly, and then frowned. “Don’t you remember? Mama and Papa brought you home the other night. You looked awful but you at least look rested now. It’s not too surprising, since you’ve been asleep for the last twenty-four hours or so. Mama said you had been awake for a long time.”

Szayel clumsily sat up and tried to get his hair under control with his fingers, but it didn’t help much. That led to the realization that he was naked and a blush that made his cheeks match his hair briefly flared to life. He subsequently clutched the blankets to his chest in surprise as he mentally chewed on that.

“Oh, that’s right… umm… ah, my clothes?” he asked sheepishly and looked around the room as if he hoped that his normal uniform might magically appear out of thin air.

She stifled a giggle, since she figured he wasn’t actually asking ‘where’ his clothes were as much as ‘who’ had taken what few clothes he’d been wearing when they’d dragged him here. Instead, Ajuga rolled her eyes at him.

“Who do you think tucked you in, Szay?”

The Espada went from pink to bright red with embarrassment and the girl chuckled outright.

“Hold on, I’ll go steal something from Papa’s wardrobe.”

Szayel grimaced at the thought of wearing her father’s clothing, but he didn’t protest when she returned with a spare uniform. He pulled it on after she turned her back so he could get dressed. The hakama was loose on his thinner hips and the jacket was a bit too broad in the shoulders for him. He probably would have tossed the vest altogether if it were not for the faint scars adorning his chest. The kanji were fading, turning pale, but remained legible from the last time Aizen had carved them into his chest. Ajuga did her best not to stare at the message, clearly intended to remind Szayel of his place every time he looked in the mirror or down his front. She found such a perverted application of something as beautiful as lettering truly appalling.

“Ah good, you’re awake. Breakfast is ready,” Karin announced as she entered the room. “I believe Soi Fon, Rangiku and Tatsuki were supposed to see you today for their checkups as well?”

“Yes,” Szayel agreed. “That’s true. Thank you for the reminder, Karin-sama.”

“You’re welcome. We can leave after we eat, and I will hear no arguments from _you_ …” Karin stated, pointing at the scientist and added the last part when Szayel opened his mouth to object. He subsequently closed his mouth, knowing when it was best to just back down. Breakfast went well and the pink-haired Espada downed at least two plates of food, to make up for the day of meals he missed. Ajuga and her mother shared a look while he started in on his second bowl of rice.

After her mother and Szayel left with Soi Fon for the appointment, Ajuga slipped out and made her way towards Aizen’s Palace, pausing only to grab some easily-carried food items from the market on her way. She effortlessly avoided the Palace patrols as well. In Ajuga’s opinion, the guards needed to stop being so predictable, if not downright _lazy_ and pay more attention to their surroundings instead of going through the motions. Of course if they did that, she conceded, she’d have a harder time sneaking past them as she made her way towards Unohana’s garden.

Then again, Ajuga asked herself, who would want to sneak into the Palace in the first place? What idiot would be dumb enough to try and kill Aizen? It wasn’t as if the Palace Guards had to worry about people getting _into_ the place. No one she knew wanted to spend any more time there than necessary.

 _The guards are little more than ceremonial decorations anyway. I doubt if any of them have ever seen real combat_ she thought derisively, deliberately ignoring just how closely she fit her own description.

In her own defence, Ajuga admitted that she didn’t stand a chance of killing Aizen, even if he deserved it for hurting Szayel and Gin and almost blinding Jushiro. However, she wasn’t here to play the role of an assassin, as tempting as it was to fantasize about being one. She had a different sort of mission in mind for today.

The traces of Gin’s cum she had picked up on Szayel had her worried about her silver-haired friend. Ajuga knew that the servant would never hurt Szayel without an order from Aizen and for all she knew, Szayel had been forced to hurt Gin too. She wanted to make sure he was alright and maybe find out what had happened. Asking Szayel would be a waste of time. He would refuse to tell her the truth, because he wouldn’t want her to do something stupid and because she suspected her father’s Claim would render him unable to discuss anything about it with her.

She waited in the bushes for about half an hour until she was certain Gin was alone in Unohana’s quarters. Aizen’s scent had faded to almost nothing and that told Ajuga that ‘Kami’ had probably left for the 1st Division to attend to matters there. If there was one good thing Ajuga could think of to say about Aizen, it was that he did manage a Division. He gave it his full attention, when he could have pawned the job off to someone else. For a ‘god’ who had the power to sit back and relax all day while forcing others to do his bidding, the jerk actually did his job as far as administration. From listening in on her mother and Nanao’s conversations, Ajuga knew that he would have helped out with the battles more if his own power wouldn’t have been just as devastating to their forces as it was to the Swarm. Aizen was, for all of his many, many faults, a ‘hands-on’ ruler.

Of course, there was such a thing as being ‘too hands-on,’ as she’d also learned from her mother and Nanao, and of late, Hana, when they’d described the amount of detailed paperwork each of the other Divisions had to complete each month. Ajuga suspected that the paperwork was really ‘busy work.’ It would be hard for the remaining Shinigami to plan a rebellion if all of their time not spent fighting was spent filling out useless reports in triplicate.

 _Micro-managing prick. He makes Szay look_ _‘_ _normal_ _’_ _on the attention-to-detail front,_ she thought with a shake of her head.

A nicely executed leap got her up to the balcony and she strode in, catching sight of the man she was worried about down on his hands and knees as he scrubbed the floor. It had been a while since she’d seen him. He was still far too skinny for his height. Ajuga would bet her last coin that if he went outside on a blustery day, the wind might pick him up and carry him away. His hair had grown out over the years. It nearly brushed the floor while he scrubbed the tiles. It was almost as long as ‘take-ji’s and it looked as if it had been at least a year since anyone had allowed him the use of a comb.

Ajuga couldn’t smell any of his own blood on him, and she didn’t smell Aizen on him either. While she could detect some of the latter, there wasn’t enough of it to really make her nose wrinkle. Most of Aizen’s scent in the room centered on Unohana’s bed, which made complete sense, given that she was his wife. Gin almost smelled unmolested by comparison. At least he looked freshly bathed.

“Gin-san,” she called.

“Damn it Ajuga!” Gin cursed as he jumped and nearly knocked the bucket of water over. His hand shot out and he grabbed the edge of the bucket just in time, keeping it upright. Both of them let out a sigh of relief. It wouldn’t be the first time such an accident had occurred when she startled him. He gave her a hard look and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “Ya gotta stop doin’ that!”

“Sorry,” she apologized, feeling more at ease once she realized he wasn’t hurt. He was exhausted but thankfully unharmed. Then she swallowed and crept closer. Screwing up her courage, she leaned in, catching his blue-eyed gaze with hers.

“What happened the other night?” she asked carefully. “With Szay?”

He stiffened before turning his attention back to his rag and bucket of soapy water.

“Not too much. Why d’ ya ask?” he asked nonchalantly, trying to sound as if the question hadn’t thrown him.

“Because Papa and Mama dragged Szay home yesterday morning and he smelled like Aizen… and you,” she answered.

Gin froze, the hand holding the rag going still. The tired man sat up with a deep sigh, moving into a kneeling position. Then he looked at her, studying her for a moment before running his thin fingers through his hair, or at least, as far as he could run them before they got caught in a mess of tangles.

“Ya really wanna know?” he asked sadly.

“I am _not_ a little girl anymore,” Ajuga answered and folded her arms across her chest, giving him a gruff look of her own before her expression softened. “I also brought a bribe.”

She held up the small paper bag she had brought with her and gently shook it up and down. The paper and the contents inside rustled, indicating she had more than dried persimmons to ply him with this time. Gin’s eyes zeroed in on it and she suddenly suspected that he hadn’t eaten yet today, almost feeling bad about using food as an inducement when he was obviously hungry.

“Fine,” he said, breaking down and giving in. “I’ll tell ya what happened, but ya did na’ hear it from me, got it?”

“Of course not.”

Ajuga walked over and took out the container of miso soup handing it to him before she pulled out the wrapped grilled fish. It was still warm and fragrant and her mouth watered as she caught a whiff of it and _she_ _’_ _d_ had a full breakfast too. Ajuga could only imagine how it must have smelled to Gin.

“Go ahead and eat first. I probably weigh more than you do these days!” she declared.

“Ya spoil me Ajuga-chan.”

He offered her a pathetically thin smile while tucking into the food, gulping down a third of the miso before deliberately lowering the waxed paper container.

“Hmm,” she agreed, sitting down across from him and waited for him to finish eating.

Gin took his time devouring the unexpected meal. Ajuga guessed that he knew better than to eat too quickly when his stomach normally had to cope with a half-starved state. If he gave into his impulses, his shrunken stomach would rebel and he would throw up whatever he took in. Aizen made sure he was fed just enough to remain a decent source of household labour and even then, he occasionally missed a meal or two. Ajuga waited with all the patience she had acquired learning to hunt, for that was what she was doing, hunting. In this case, she was on the prowl for information, rather than dinner.

When Gin finished, he handed Ajuga the garbage to take with her. It was too dangerous to leave it here where Aizen might find it. They’d been careful so far and Aizen hadn’t discovered any of the times either Ajuga or Unohana had slipped him food. If he did know, then he’d chosen, for some reason, not to punish Gin for eating what was handed to him. That didn’t mean that Gin and Ajuga wanted to test how true that theory might be. It was better to hide any and all evidence, just in case.

“Are ya sure ya wanna know?” Gin asked her, his voice serious.

“Yes,” she said resolutely. “I want to know _everything_. Every crime Aizen has committed against Szay,’ everything he has ever done to hurt or torture him.”

“Alright. Jus‘… don’t do somethin’ stupid after I tell ya, like go after Aizen. Ya won’t win.” Gin hissed the warning at her. He gestured to his scarred, skinny frame, as if to underscore the message, just in case she didn’t understand. “Trust me. I already tried it.”

“I won’t,” she promised him, bracing herself for what she was about to learn. Part of her wanted to hear that it couldn’t possibly be as bad as what she’d imagined.

In that respect, Ajuga was right.

It was worse.

Much worse.

Gin told her everything, pausing at some of the darker things to see how she might react to it before continuing with his terrible narrative. Ajuga was thoroughly shocked and horrified as the servant revealed that Aizen’s abuse of Szayel had been going on long before she’d been born, before the war, before Aizen and his Espada had ever left Hueco Mundo.

At first, she learned that Aizen had committed no real ‘crimes’ against the scientist, from an Arrancar’s point of view. The true atrocities started after Aizen had ascended the Throne, when the ex-Taichou had been certain of his power base and felt comfortable enough to begin his subjugation of the then-Octavio in earnest. That was when the first real ‘rapes,’ as a Hollow would define the act, began. All other ‘encounters,’ wanted or not, had been from behind and Ajuga felt, growing sicker as Gin continued, that had Aizen been capable of doing so, Szayel would have long since been Claimed by him. In fact, Szayel himself probably figured that he was ‘owned’ by Aizen at that point and it would have been a position of prestige to be the only Espada ‘Claimed’ by Kami.

That is, it would have been until ‘Kami-sama’ turned as abusive as Yammy and even bastards as bad as Yammy and Barragan didn’t force their pets to mate with them face-to-face. The breakfast she’d eaten hours earlier suddenly wasn’t sitting all that well in her gut.

Then she found out that Aizen’s violence towards Gin _wasn_ _’_ _t_ actually the worst of it and she had to hang on to her last meal by sheer force of will. Ajuga didn’t want to get Gin into trouble because she couldn’t keep from tossing her cookies into the shrubbery. Still it was difficult to listen to and thankfully, fury replaced nausea almost as quickly as the nausea had started.

A rage fiercer than any she’d ever felt before raced through her when she learned about Aizen’s threats against both Abisara and Vindula. She didn’t doubt Gin’s assertion that so far, the threats were meant to keep Szayel in line. However, she was also sure that Aizen would carry then out if he thought he could get away with it… and as Gin went on, she discovered that she wasn’t the only one who believed that.

Gin informed her of an afternoon, a little over two years ago, when Aizen had commanded that Szayel bring Vindula with him, to report on something that had happened in Hueco Mundo. While Gin danced around what had happened in the other Realm, he told Ajuga that he’d expected one of two things to happen after Szayel’s meeting with Aizen. Aizen would either use the incident to initiate another ‘playtime session’ with Szayel, or less likely, Aizen would hurt Vindula somehow to teach Szayel a lesson about keeping his possessions secure from thieves.

As it turned out, neither happened. Gin guessed that Renji, who Ajuga learned had tagged along as Vindula’s guardian, deliberately sidetracked Aizen’s attentions from Vindula by speaking up. Gin had been allowed to leave with the little girl and not being a fool, he’d fled with her to Unohana’s gardens. That had left Renji and Szayel with Aizen and the contents of a long, wooden box. When Gin had delivered Vindula to her father, Szayel had been pale, but physically unharmed.

Renji had been a different story altogether. ‘Red,’ as her father called him, had been whipped, taking whatever ill will might have been meant for either Vindula or Szayel onto himself. Ajuga vowed to think a little better of the twins’ guardian upon hearing this. She knew he was fiercely protective of the two children, but to provoke Aizen in order to get Vindula away from him? That took some guts. It also explained why Renji had shown up on Starrk’s doorstep, asking for help the other night, especially after the unnecessary and horrid threats against Szayel’s son.

By the time Gin was done she was shaking, desperately trying to keep her emotions in check and not do something foolish.

 _Breath. Focus. Deep breaths. In. Out. In. Out. One. Two. One. Two. Think of the flowing kanji for river. Picture the peaceful depths of an ocean, the one you_ _’_ _ve only seen in books,_ Ajuga chanted to herself as she ran through all of the ways to calm herself that she’d learned from her various teachers, from her father to Bya-san, over the years.

Eventually, her anger ebbed a bit, simmering at a controllable level instead of boiling. Ajuga was still furious, but she wasn’t about to fly in a frenzy to the 1st Division to confront Aizen either. Doing so would only get her killed and land her friends and family in Aizen’s playroom.

“Thank you Gin-san, for trusting me with this. I promise I won’t do anything rash with this information,” she swore to him, even though she wanted to give into the temptation to do just that. It was all she could to restrain herself and despite her best efforts, the adrenaline coursing through her veins as she held herself in check made her hands tremble.

He gave a nod of his head while refilling his bucket with clean, soapy water. He’d continued to work while speaking to her. The chores could not wait and Ajuga could tell the activity had helped him keep himself under control, preventing a breakdown as he had related the distressing tales, especially during the parts that had included him.

“Ya should probably go Ajuga-chan. Aizen-Kami should be home soon,” he warned her sounding bleak.

“Yeah,” she agreed.

The dark-haired girl gathered the paper bag full of the empty containers and wrappers before leaving, but she didn’t head for home, not yet. She needed to find an outlet for at least some of this anger and she needed to find it quickly. Unfortunately, everyone she knew that might be able to help was either at work or had other duties. Then she remembered that Diaemus had the day off. She would never admit it, but Diaemus was a good match for her and she could probably talk him into sparring with her for a while. With that in mind, she made for the Fourth’s home and hoped Diaemus was there. As it turned out, she was in luck.

“Ajuga,” he greeted her as she marched into his house unannounced. He looked up from the book he was reading to regard her calmly, though one of his eyebrows went up as he took in her seething expression and the tension she was carrying in her frame. “Is it not customary for a guest to knock before entering?” he asked in that uppity voice he liked to use sometimes. Normally it annoyed her, but today she hardly noticed it.

“Sorry. Let’s spar, I got some major steam I need to blow off!” she growled.

That earned her a frown, but he made no move to get up off of the couch, nor put down the thick book he was reading.

“Why?” he asked instead, looking at her intently and finally giving her his full attention, something he didn’t do very often. Ajuga made a frustrated, cutting motion.

“I told you, I need to work out some anger and everyone else is busy.”

“I meant, tell me why you are angry,” he clarified, finally setting his book down next to him.

Ajuga almost told him it was none of his fucking business, but paused and studied him. Diaemus continued to gaze at her calmly, waiting for an answer. Something about the way his green eyes looked into her blazing sapphire ones helped mitigate her temper. It was as if he was a wall made of ice and the more she tried to throw herself at him, the more heat he took out of her, until all that was left was a sense of exhaustion and despondency. He shifted slightly on the couch, a silent invitation to join him, and she did so without a second thought, flouncing down and bending over at the waist, her arms folded and resting on her knees.

“I learned some pretty depressing and disturbing things today,” she admitted softly after several minutes of silence between them.

He remained still, waiting for her to continue without pressuring her. Eventually, her mouth opened of its own accord. She hadn’t meant to let him in on everything, but it all came spilling out, every dark and dirty secret she had learned about what Aizen had done to Szayel and his family. She did manage to keep her source a secret. Thus began a rant about how helpless she felt knowing there was nothing she could do about it. Her anger flared again and soon, Ajuga found herself rising from the couch, furiously pacing from one end of the living room to the other. She was so worked up that neither she nor Diaemus noticed the sound of the front door opening.

As she related Gin’s story, Diaemus’ normally calm and collected demeanour vanished and his expression soon mirrored her stormy one. His green eyes blazed with anger as she told him about the taboos Aizen had broken with someone he didn’t even own. Ajuga had just finished telling him about Aizen’s threat to use violence against Abisara, all in order to force Szayel to have sex with him as if they were mates, when they heard a sharp intake of breath behind them.


	38. Emotions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A rollercoaster of ups and downs and ups and downs.

“This is so exciting!” Orihime squealed in delight. “I still can’t believe you are both having babies at the same time! And you, Rangiku-chan. Twins! How is Nnoitra-san handling the fact he’s going to be a father?”

“It’s hard to tell, so far,” Rangiku answered with a small smile on her own face. “Although, the last two poker nights ended early and he didn’t consume nearly the amount of sake he normally drinks. Wish I could say the same for our ‘guests.’”

“He’s made up for it with a marked increase in bragging,” Tatsuki added dryly.

“Can you blame him? Rangiku is having twins!” Orihime squealed again. The Shinigami woman sighed and shook her head, then nudged Tatsuki’s shoulder.

“He brags about _your_ pregnancy too!” Rangiku pointed out. “It makes Tesra blush ever so cutely.”

“Alright, you have me there,” the brunette reluctantly admitted. “He is rather adorable when he blushes. I don’t think Nnoitra’s ever given Tesra this much positive attention before and he doesn’t quite seem to know what to do with it.”

“So, any sign of more children for you Orihime?” Rangiku asked.

“None planned, but we aren’t using protection either,” Orihime conceded with a light blush.

“And no doubt, with the number of battles going on, you’re getting it as often as we are,” Tatsuki smirked at her old friend.

“Tatsuki-chan!” Orihime gasped, her pink cheeks going even pinker. “You shouldn’t talk about such things in public,” she admonished.

“Don’t ‘Tatsuki-chan’ me, missy. You’re the one screaming so loudly while Ulquiorra rides you that the entire neighbourhood knows what’s going on in your bedroom. Hell, you drove your own son out of the house in a bid to escape… what was it, round two or round three that morning?” Tatsuki inquired, taunting her friend mercilessly.

Orihime’s face turned tomato red in embarrassment while she stuttered and suddenly it was ‘game on’ in an attempt to see how deeply they could make the Fourth’s mate blush.

“You know, there is one good thing I have always had to say about Nnoitra-sama,” Rangiku said, cutting in with a thoughtful look on her pretty face.

“What’s that?” Tatsuki asked. The taller woman’s expression promptly turned wicked.

“The things he does with the tongue of his are positively _sinful!_ ”

“You two are impossible!”

Orihime threw her hands up in the air in exasperation and her face turned a shade of red normally reserved for those suffering from sunburns. Tatsuki remained unapologetic, grilling the other human woman in pursuit of salacious details.

“Oh, come on Orihime-chan! There have to be things that Ulquiorra does with that tail of his and those wings. You know, stuff that leaves you shivering!”

“Yes, but Ulquiorra prefers that we don’t talk about our sex life,” Orihime sniffed. Her companions gave each other a significant look.

“Bullshit!” Tatsuki coughed into her hand.

“Bless you,” Rangiku replied in kind, an equally unrepentant look in her eyes. Tatsuki nodded and rounded on her childhood friend, with a look on her face that told Orihime her friend had decided to move in for the kill.

“Thank you, Rangiku-chan. Listen here, Orihime-chan… men _love_ it when you talk about your sex life, as long as what you say is positive. They just pretend they don’t like it, but in truth, it strokes their fragile little egos and…”

“Oh look, there is Karin-chan and Soi Fon-san, with Szayel-san!”

Orihime interrupted Tatsuki’s lecture, sounding deeply relieved to see a sorely-needed distraction walking down the street towards them. Her friends turned to look in the direction she had pointed and the brunette put her hands on her hips, a puzzled look on her face.

“That’s odd,” Tatsuki said, brows knitting.

“What is?” Rangiku asked.

“Why is Szayel-san with them? He never leaves the confines of his Division, if he can help it.” Tatsuki’s frown deepened and she dropped all of her attempts to dig at things that Orihime would rather keep private in favour of figuring out why the Seventh Espada was out and about this morning.

“Hmm, maybe they had a meeting or something.”

Now that Tatsuki mentioned it, Orihime also found it strange that Szayel was somewhere other than his precious Science and Research Building. He knew all of the pregnant women were coming today for their weekly checkups. She’d seen him enough while she was pregnant with Diaemus to know that normally, he would have been getting his lab ready and bouncing around in a state of barely-concealed excitement. Instead, he was walking beside Karin with a worried look on his face and acting as if a rain cloud had taken up residence over his head.

Everyone exchanged ‘good mornings’ once their two small groups merged and together they continued on towards the large, glass-domed building.

“How are you two feeling?” Karin asked after giving Rangiku a hug.

Tatsuki made a face.

“The morning sickness is still a problem, but not enough of one to keep me from the battlefield. Although, I’m sure that if Tesra thought he could get away with it, he would chain me to the house the way Nnoitra chains Rangiku,” the human woman answered with a trace of amusement coloring her words. “I have to keep reminding him that I am pregnant, not sick, and that exercise at this stage is good for me.”

Rangiku took up where Tatsuki left off.

“I have morning _and_ afternoon sickness, and to make matters worse, I have been craving fried pickles and taiyaki of all things.”

“At the same time?” Karin gaped at the taller woman. “I can remember craving near raw meat, but not that particular combination! Are you maybe craving chocolate ice cream and fish by any chance?”

The strawberry-blonde shook her head and stuck out her tongue.

“No, thankfully. Otherwise, I am healthy as can be. Nnoitra-sama has forbidden me from participating in any close combat, so I have been stationed with the Kido squads. Fortunately, Haineko is an effective long-range weapon and I am not too bad with the mid-level Kido spells,” Rangiku answered, her voice tinted with exasperation.

“Really? Grimmjow didn’t have a problem with me training when I was pregnant. In fact, I swear he got harder on me!” Karin recounted.

“Training and battle are two different things,” Szayel spoke up. “In addition, Ajuga was already born by the time the Swarm began their incursions into the Soul Society.”

“Hmm, I suppose. Still no word from the lower ranks of any successful pregnancies?” she asked. Szayel got a thoughtful look and adjusted his cracked glasses as he seemed to sift through his memory for the information his ‘mistress’ wanted.

“No, but that doesn’t mean that there might not have been some that were miscarried. In fact, there could be a few ‘undiscovered’ pregnancies now. There exists, on average, a considerably larger gap in power between the lower-numbered Arrancar and any Shinigami below Fukutaichou class and that might have something to do with it.”

“That is true,” Rangiku agreed, sounding contemplative. Orihime, for her part, looked a little confused.

“If there are such large differences in power between the various Numeros and those they have Claimed, why haven’t we heard about more deaths from failed Claimings?” Orihime posed the question and the Espada stroked his chin before answering.

“Oh, well, the gap in power has to be quite large for a Claim attempt to result in death,” Szayel informed the women, rubbing his hands together in anticipation of lecturing on one of his favourite topics. “For example, if Ulquiorra were to exercise a Claim over a Shinigami, the Claim would not result in a death unless he attempted to Claim someone possessing the average power of a typical 4th or 5th Seat. If he went any lower than that, or if he chose to try to Claim one of the unranked Shinigami, his Claim would result in the mortality of the attempted ’Claimee.’ For those ranked at the 5th Seat or higher, the Claim would last for a very long time, easily over a year, but that person would survive.”

The scientist held up one finger in a cautionary gesture as Orihime’s eyes got a bit bigger.

“That being said, power imbalances are relative and what holds true for an Espada might not hold true for the Numeros, depending on the parties involved.”

“I am not a Shinigami, and yet I handle Tesra’s energy just fine,” Tatsuki added, elbowing her friend. “…and he impregnated me without any problems. There is absolutely no stress in our relationship, of course, but from what I have seen and overheard, most of the Arrancar are at least trying to treat those they’ve Claimed a bit better these days. They’re probably suffering less, at any rate, than during the first few years…”

“True, but all of the Shinigami ‘pets’ have been out on the battlefield, and that creates a different sort of strain,” Rangiku pointed out. “The battles with the Swarm were well underway before anyone realized that ‘stress’ was a problem when it came to conception.”

Karin nodded and stretched as she walked, eyes trained on the blue sky overhead.

“That’s a good point Rangiku, and I don’t see it going away any time soon. The fighting has been intense since the Defence Net went down. It’s almost as if our enemies are trying to do as much damage as they can before they take their usual spring break. I’m sure they’re trying to keep us too busy to build another Net to keep them out.”

The little group of women and Szayel made it to the main entrance of the Science and Research Building while they conversed and Orihime stared up at the large dome that covered it. Its glass glittered beautifully in the early morning sunshine, the facets reflecting the white of the clouds and the azure hue of the sky. Sometimes the human healer wondered if someone had actually carved the entire thing out of one very large diamond.

“PAPA!!!”

A childish voice screeched as soon as they were through the sliding front doors.

Vindula was a pastel blur as she flung herself into her father’s arms, clutching the front of his borrowed uniform tightly and crying, her wings buzzing a mile a minute and her body shaking. Instinctively, the women took a collective step back, both to avoid being struck by a stray wing and to give Szayel a bit of breathing room to deal with his distraught little girl. Renji strolled up behind her. It was obvious that the two had been waiting for a while in the reception area, probably for Szayel’s return.

“I was so worried about you Papa. Ji-ji said you were okay, but you never come home yesterday! Where were you Papa?” Vindula demanded tearfully.

Szayel let out a soft sigh and picked the girl up, carrying her so that her chin rested on his shoulder. His arms formed a makeshift seat for her. Thus, he could hang onto her while still making progress towards the usual examination area. His golden eyes closed while he spoke gently to his daughter.

“I was foolish again and didn’t get enough sleep. So after my meeting with Kami-sama, Karin-sama ordered me back to her house so I could get some proper sleep without any interruptions, or attempts to sneak off to work,” he answered her question with a smile. “I am sorry I worried you, Vindula-chan.”

“See, I told you your old man was fine,” Renji winked at his charge, reaching out and ruffling her hair with one hand, tugging gently on one pig-tail’s worth of long black curls.

Orihime turned and winced as she got a good look at the redhead. He appeared to have been in some kind of fight, if she was any judge of injuries. None of them seemed serious, but he was covered in livid bruises and scrapes and she counted more than a few cuts that looked as if someone had inflicted them with a sword.

“What happen to you? You look like you were mauled by a lion!” Tatsuki asked with a low whistle of appreciation for some of the darker marks.

“Something along those lines,” Karin muttered for him in an annoyed way.

“Hey, I gave as good as I got! You should see the other guy!” Renji crossed his arms defensively, his right eye twitching, and the rest of the women were left to share a collective look of bewilderment.

“Why do men feel like they need to resolve all their issues by fighting?” Karin sighed. Her ‘pet’ gave a ‘tch’ noise, shaking his head at damage.

“I am sorry, Karin-sama, but not even my extensive knowledge and research have been able to provide a satisfying answer to that question,” Szayel answered, adjusting his mask fragment as he did so. He turned hard eyes on Renji, who didn’t look the least bit sorry for appearing as if he’d just lost a fight with an enraged gorilla.

“I hope the examination room is ready, Abarai.”

“Yeah. Nemu prepped it first thing this morning. Abisara-kun’s been working on some sort of portable radiation sensor-thingy since yesterday morning, but I did manage to get him into bed for a few hours last night,” Renji reported. “Damn near had to tie him to the bed, but three chapters from Thornton’s _Classical Dynamics of Particles and Systems_ and the sound of that toy of his put him to sleep.” Then the redhead reached up and scratched the back of his neck and yawned. “Damned near put _me_ to sleep too…”

“How is he doing?” Szayel asked softly. Renji’s shoulders drooped for a second and his demeanour shifted to ‘all business.’

“Feeling guilty, like the entire thing was his fault. I told him to get over it, that he wasn’t to blame and that Aizen would have found a way to be an ass even if you two had found the answer in time. He’s still a little upset that he got you in trouble, but he’ll get over it once he sees that you’re back.”

“Did something happen?” Orihime asked, concerned.

“Nothing for you to fret over,” Szayel waved the question away and the way that Renji, Karin and Szayel’s expressions closed off suddenly made Orihime decide to drop the subject.

“Alright.”

She let it go, considering all that needed to be done for the expectant mothers this morning. Orihime was well aware that she wasn’t exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer, but she wasn’t the dullest either. She had seen the cruelty Aizen was capable of inflicting. She’d seen it in Hueco Mundo and had been there, cleaning up the damage when Szayel had been nothing more than a quivering, bloody mess. Something bad had gone down in the last day or two, which explained why Szayel was with Karin this morning. Instead, she vowed to get the story out of the other human woman later.

If it was one thing she’d learned over the last fifteen years, it was how to differentiate between the problems over which she had little control and the ones she could help solve in the here-and-now.

“Would you like me to heal those wounds, Renji-kun?” Orihime asked, putting on a bright smile for his benefit.

“I suppose,” he said and grinned at her sheepishly. “They don’t really hurt, but you never know when the Swarm will show up and it would be stupid to risk another injury because of a current one. To be fair, you should offer to do the same for Grimmjow.”

His triumphant smirk as he tossed in that last part faded quickly when Karin glared at the redhead, who had the good sense to take a few steps and get at least an arm’s length away.

“Grimmjow?” Tatsuki and Rangiku asked at the same time, with an equal amount of surprise. Even Soi Fon’s eyes grew larger when she heard that. Karin rubbed her forehead with the heel of her hand, looking very put-upon all of a sudden, especially when everyone turned to look at her, instead of Szayel, for an explanation.

“The two of them seem to have this stupid agreement to beat each other into the dirt when one of them in having a bad day,” Karin answered with a sigh. “Forget about healing Grimmjow, Orihime. The idiot can suffer!”

“How often does that happen?” Rangiku asked looking from Renji to Karin. Karin’s lip curled in disgust.

“Surprisingly, not as often as I thought it was going to be when I learned about their mutual, testosterone-driven stupidity,” she said with no small amount of sarcasm.

“No doubt because you put the fear into them,” Orihime chuckled.

“I’m right here, you know…” the redhead snorted.

“Hmm,” Karin agreed, and continued to glare at Renji, while Szayel gave his ‘pet’ a disgruntled look of his own. Renji, oddly enough, looked unrepentant about his bout with the Sixth. If anything, it seemed to Orihime as if he was trying very hard not to grin at the both of them.

Maybe Karin was right and they’d both lost their minds.

Renji stood still while Orihime quickly healed him, the damage disappearing beneath her golden shield. Most of it was superficial and the task didn’t take long. When she was done, Szayel handed a soothed Vindula back to her caretaker and the entourage continued down to the examination room. They traded idle chatter with one another, with the exception of Soi Fon. Unable to speak, she remained silent, although she paid close attention to the conversation. Nemu waited for them in the prepared room. The worried look on her face immediately morphed into relief as the Espada walked up to her and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, and then moved his hand to her cheek. The touch was fleeting, but it did the trick. Nemu visibly relaxed and bowed her head, reaching up to touch the hand on her face before she turned back to the computer consoles.

Szayel disappeared briefly, and returned a few minutes later wearing a new, clean, properly–fitting uniform. He also appeared more like his normal, excitable self with experimental subjects ready for his inspection. Whatever had happened couldn’t have been overly bad, Orihime decided. Vindula had recovered as well, but she resisted all of Renji’s attempts to get her to leave the room. Obviously, she had missed her father a great deal and now seemed reluctant to let him out of her sight.

 _‘_ _If only Diaemus-kun showed me that kind of loyalty and affection,_ _’_ Orihime thought wistfully.

The three pregnant women had switched into gowns behind a screen while Szayel had retreated to change his clothing. It was a good thing Szayel kept his labs and the examination rooms at a comfortable temperature. Some rooms had to be kept cooler, but for the most part his entire complex was actually welcoming, something Orihime had never expected from the Arrancar. Of course, before she’d gained some firsthand knowledge while carrying Diaemus, all she’d had to go on were less-than-complimentary rumours told to her while she’d been an inmate in Hueco Mundo.

“Now then, who’s ready?” Szayel asked as he patted the hospital bed.

“I’ll go first,” Tatsuki volunteered without hesitation.

“Soi Fon-san, if you would follow me,” Nemu gestured to the other table.

Soi Fon, understandably, had little trust in Szayel and was far more comfortable having Nemu look her over. Orihime recalled her own apprehension when she found out Szayel would be overseeing her pregnancy. However, she now found she was comfortable around him. Knowing what Aizen had done to him helped a considerable amount on that front, as it was easier to sympathize with a fellow victim.

“How have you been feeling, Tatsuki-san?” Szayel asked, and started the examination. The human woman’s expression took a thoughtful turn.

“I feel okay, I suppose. I still have some morning sickness, but no cravings or aversions as of yet. Tesra is taking good care of me and making sure my meals are well-balanced. That boy can cook!” she sighed blissfully.

“Tell me about it,” Rangiku added with a sigh. “You should try his fried rice!”

“Tesra prepares the meals for the both of you?” Szayel asked, jotting the information down.

“Nnoitra made us move in with them two days ago,” Tatsuki explained. “He said something about looking for a bigger den and keeping everyone together for safety sake.”

“Understandable,” Szayel hummed as he poked and prodded at Tatsuki’s stomach. “Cubs, especially newborns, are particularly vulnerable. It’s easier to defend them if your entire pack is in one dwelling. A reasonable decision on his part, based on logistics.”

“Can’t you do the ultrasound first, before you start doing that,” Tatsuki complained when his hand found a sensitive spot. “My bladder feels like it’s going to burst as it is without you pushing on it. Seriously, why do we need full bladders for this anyway?”

Szayel gave the grouchy woman an indulgent smile, but didn’t stop the exam.

“Positioning. A full bladder makes it easier for the ultrasound machine to find and tune in on the growing child,” he replied, brushing some of his pink hair out of his eyes.

“I’ll take your word on it,” Tatsuki huffed uncomfortably.

Szayel chuckled, but he did move the machine over and everyone crowded around to look at the image once he’d applied the necessary gel and the paddles.

“Can I see too, please Papa?” Vindula begged from where she wriggled in Renji’s arms.

“There isn’t too much to see right now love,” he responded.

Vindula’s entire posture sagged.

“But I am sure your mother will show you Soi Fon’s baby. She’s much farther along.”

“Really?” Vindula asked excitedly, turning her gaze to her mother and the former Taichou. “Can I? Please?” she begged, turning big, watery eyes towards the two women. Soi Fon snorted softly with what sounded like amusement before giving the little girl a smile and nodding, indicating it was alright with her.

“Yes!” Vindula cheered.

Szayel was right; there was not much to see of Tatsuki’s child yet. If anything, the baby looked like some sort of itty, bitty, unborn fish. Rangiku’s twins were smaller than that, resembling tiny worms within the membranes of their respective eggs. It was too early yet for there to be any real development and it would be a while before the developing fetuses began to resemble children. Once Vindula got to see the images of Soi Fon’s child, she finally let the now-mended Renji lead her out of the examination room to get a late breakfast.

“You know, something just occurred to me,” Karin said while Szayel and Nemu concluded the exams and finished collecting the needed samples from each.

“And what might that be, Karin-sama?” Szayel asked.

“We know most of the Arrancar are treating those they Claimed better than they used to, and the pressures of battle shouldn’t be too much for those who are trained to deal with it. Now, I know Grimmjow refreshes my Claim far more frequently than necessary because, let’s face it, it’s the best damn sex around…”

“Amen to that,” Tatsuki agreed with a laugh. “I get Tesra to refresh mine all the time, although he hasn’t done so since I told him I was pregnant.”

“Now that I think about it, Nnoitra-sama hasn’t refreshed mine either,” Rangiku added and looked at Karin curiously. Szayel’s expression abruptly shifted to one that proclaimed ‘aha!’

“I see where you are going with this, Karin-sama. With the increase in battles, there has been a dramatic increase in sex, and re-Claiming. Theoretically speaking, it should be safe to cast a Claim on a pregnant woman and any spillover of the excess reiatsu would result in the unborn child being Claimed as well. However, a large difference in power between the lower ranks of Shinigami and their Claimers, not to mention the increased frequency of re-Claiming would put undue strain on any resulting embryos, especially those in their early development. As a result, miscarriages would be common. Most of the Claimed females would never know they were pregnant in the first place.”

The scientist looked absolutely elated.

“Exactly,” Karin agreed. “In a twenty-eight day period of fertility, any conceptions and miscarriages caused by too-frequent Claimings might simply play out as a normal cycle.”

“But what can be done about that?” Rangiku asked. Szayel held one finger up in the air.

“The answer is relatively simple. We just request all women take a pregnancy test before their Masters re-Claim them. As long as there’s a reasonable amount of time between Claims, we can determine if the woman has conceived. In theory, that would prevent any Claim-induced miscarriages. Orihime-san, could you bring this up with Unohana-Taichou? You will be seeing her later today, will you not?” he asked.

“Tomorrow morning, unless a battle occurs. I would be happy to bring it up with her.”

“Excellent. Well then, you ladies seem in good health and everything appears in order. I have work I need to begin immediately. Nemu, will you please see our guests out?” Szayel dismissed them.

“Of course, Szayel-sama,” his mate said and bowed before indicating that the rest of the women should follow her.

“I’ll catch up in a minute. I want to look in on Mushi for a moment.”

Karin waved goodbye before she followed Szayel out of the examination room. Nemu nodded her head in agreement and led the rest of them back to the main lobby.

Looking around, Orihime couldn’t help comparing the outside of the structure to the inside. The Science and Research Division building’s interior was as lovely and well-crafted as its exterior. It was open, well lit, and exquisitely decorated. Even the numerous labs and subterranean rooms were bright and cheery and while there, it was hard to remember that one _was_ underground at all. It was nothing like the dank and gloomy place she’d first imagined it to be. She didn’t know if the Seventh had designed it, or if it had looked this way when Nemu’s father ran the place as the base of the old 12th Division, but whoever had created it at least had a grasp of aesthetics.

“I’ll see you later, okay?” Tatsuki gave her a hug, dragging her back to reality.

“Alright. You two should be careful now!” she ordered them, wagging a finger in their direction.

“With the men in our lives, I don’t think we could be adventurous if we begged and pleaded for it,” Rangiku noted as she drew Orihime in for an embrace as well.

Tatsuki and Rangiku left, chatting about some of the things they should pick up at the market on their way home. Orihime waited so that Soi Fon wouldn’t be left alone while Karin finished seeing to whatever it was she had to do with Mushi. While it was unlikely that Barragan would storm into Szayel’s domain, she wouldn’t put it past him either. With her here, he might think twice before attacking someone Claimed by another Espada.

“So, how is living on Starrk-san’s estate?” Orihime asked to break the silence.

‘Pleasant,’ Soi Fon wrote out on her chalk board.

“That’s good,” Orihime offered her smile. “You are looking much better, like you’re finally getting enough to eat.”

Soi Fon nodded her head in agreement and placed a hand on the growing curve of her belly, before her expression turned melancholy.

‘Yumichika tries his best to keep information flowing, but it has been difficult.’

“I bet,” Orihime sighed unhappily, reading the other woman’s answer. “Has anyone found a solution yet?”

‘Karin thought the Third might be of help, but with so much going on she hasn’t had time to bring it up.’

“Hmm,” Orihime agreed, understanding what Soi Fon meant. Things _had_ been very busy. Between battles and cleanup, followed by more battles, it was a wonder anyone had any leisure time at all. She could just imagine what those who had to do paperwork on top of it all were feeling. Some days it felt like she spent more time at the 4th Division than she spent in her own home. Ulquiorra was visibly tired and less amorous than usual, between the battles and the stepped-up patrols.

Karin finally arrived with a pensive look on her face that vanished as they exchanged hugs and promises to see each other later. Orihime finally turned and made for home herself, pausing at one of the local food markets to grab a few things for dinner that night. She hummed happily, enjoying the beautiful sunny day and the unseasonably warm weather.

Unfortunately, what she walked into when she arrived home made her wonder if she had taken a detour into the twilight zone. She heard the raised voices when she opened the front gate, long before she got to the door and it took her a moment to recognize the second one speaking loudly in frustration. The first one was Ajuga, but the second…

 _‘_ _Is that Diaemus-kun?_ _’_ she thought with some astonishment. _‘_ _I have never heard him raise his voice like that. What_ _’_ _s going on?_ _’_

She jogged the last little bit and rushed inside, freezing when she took in the scene in the living room. Ajuga paced back and forth with her ears laid back and her tail thrashing in agitation. Her fur bristled and her hands were flexing madly like she wanted to claw something to shreds. For a moment, Orihime actually feared for her furniture.

What worried Orihime was that her normally stoic son didn’t look much better. Diaemus’s tail twitched wildly and his hands were clenched into fists. A mixture of naked disgust and raw anger had settled on her son’s face and she’d never seen him display that much emotion before.

However, that wasn’t the most surreal part. Ulquiorra stood before both children and he too seemed extremely displeased and uncomfortable with whatever was going on. It was rare her mate showed any emotions, but right now he looked ready to explode.

“What is going on here?” Orihime asked, drawing the attention of the two children and one perturbed adult to her. If she hoped her arrival might diffuse some of the hostility in the room, she was sadly mistaken.

“Aizen hurt Szay again!” Ajuga answered with a vicious snarl. “Today I finally found out about all of the other shit that bastard has done to him, shit he has no right to do, especially after Papa Claimed him and gave him to Mama as a gift!” Ajuga growled this out and added, “Worse, he was going to hurt Abisara-kun too!”

Orihime felt the blood drain from her face as one of the conversations she’d heard earlier in the day, between Szayel and Renji, echoed through her mind. She recalled Renji saying that Abisara had been upset over getting Szayel in trouble. From Ajuga’s furious expression and Diaemus’s distress, Orihime realized that the ‘trouble’ had been more severe than she’d imagined. Suddenly, little Vindula’s near-hysteria as she greeted her father made much more sense.

“What do you mean when you say Aizen-Kami was going to hurt Abisara-kun?” Orihime demanded, completely forgetting about the basket of ingredients she still had in her hands.

Ajuga took a deep breath and stared in on what Orihime would later learn was a third retelling of the story, although the older woman noticed that she didn’t identify her source for the information. It wasn’t just what had happened last night; Ajuga told her about things Orihime knew nothing about, incidents going back long before Ulquiorra had taken her to Hueco Mundo. The girl hadn’t yet been born when some of the events she spoke about occurred, which mean that whoever had told her these things had first-hand knowledge of them. She’d only known about one of the terrible incidents and she recalled that the scientist appeared broken and ready to kill himself. Now she learned that Aizen had levelled far more abuse on the Seventh Espada that anyone suspected.

A more detached part of her was pleased to see that Diaemus seemed just as disturbed as Ajuga by the revelations. It was good to see evidence that her son had such a strong moral compass and she was glad that he found Ajuga’s report appalling. Another part of her wished that her son had never learned of Aizen’s cruelty. Diaemus had always respected Aizen’s power and leadership, a trait he picked up from his father, and to have that image shattered had to be painful for the boy.

However, it was the very end of Ajuga’s rant, the part that she’d originally walked in on and interrupted, that made Orihime feel as if someone had shoved an icicle through her stomach. What Ajuga told them also caused a look of horrified disbelief to flash briefly across Ulquiorra’s face as well and Orihime suspected that this was the first time he’d heard this as well. Aizen had threatened to harm Abisara, and had raped Szayel all night in his place when the scientist had pleaded to take his son‘s punishment. Orihime had to sit down on the sofa, putting the basket of food on the cushion next to her, because she couldn’t trust her legs not to give out.

When Orihime turned to her mate, the agony she saw in his eyes told her that something inside of him had shattered. She suspected it was his view of the Shinigami he’d idolized and he was rapidly scrounging around for the pieces to try to put that image back together.

“Sleep deprivation is hardly an unfitting punishment for a child.”

Ulquiorra was the first to break the silence, but Orihime noticed his voice lacked real confidence or conviction. It was almost as if he was trying to reassure _himself_ that the punishment was not excessive instead of trying to convince the three of them.

Denial, Orihime knew from personal experience, made for terrible glue.

“Bullshit,” Ajuga growled dangerously. “Aizen fucking _raped_ him, took him face-to-face as only mates have a right to do. Sleep deprivation my ass! Szay was only supposed to take _Abisara_ _’_ _s_ punishment. Do you really think Szay couldn’t keep himself awake if that is what Aizen wanted out of him?”

Diaemus spoke up before Ulquiorra had a chance to answer Ajuga’s question, or berate the girl for daring to go toe-to-toe and eye-to-eye with him in an argument. Orihime could tell that Ajuga’s had certainly hit a sore spot. However, it was Diaemus’s next set of questions that really shook her mate, probably because her son chose to wield his father’s favourite weapon against him: logic.

“Tou-san, are you implying that Abisara _deserved_ to be punished just because he was trying to assist his father in Grantz-san’s research? When Grantz-san was unable to complete it on time, does it make any sort of sense for Aizen to punish the _boy_ for assisting, instead of the person supposedly in charge of the project?” Diaemus inquired, and he almost sounded as if he was imploring his father to truly think about the situation. “He is only five! He’s not even old enough to start hunting on his own yet. It is unreasonable to expect so much out of such a young child!”

That seemed to stump her mate for a moment, and Orihime had to admit that her son made some excellent points. Ajuga stepped up before Diaemus could continue.

“ _We_ have gotten away with considerably more than that over the years. Face it, Ulquiorra-san, this has _nothing_ to do with punishing Abisara and more to do with Aizen being an abusive asshole and using any excuse he can to rape Szay!” she snarled, overriding anything the other hybrid might say.

“Ajuga-chan, language,” Orihime warned, but her voice lacked any kind of strength.

Perhaps her son had decided to get serious with his argument because he folded his arms across his chest and his green eyes, so much like his father’s, narrowed.

“Szayel-san belongs to Grimmjow-san, does he not? Just like Mother belongs to you? Are you telling me you would silently accept Kami-sama doing to my mother what he does to Grantz-san because she was say, unable to heal someone soaked in beetle acid, even though such a request would be unreasonable?” Diaemus inquired sharply, with what almost sounded to Orihime like sarcasm.

She gaped at her boy, never having heard such emotion from him before. Tears threatened at the corners of his eyes. A part of her wanted to envelop him in a hug for thinking so much about her safety, for knowing he really did care about her. The other part felt for Ulquiorra, placed between a rock and a very hard place by his child. Diaemus had never raised his voice to his father, had never shown Ulquiorra anything but quiet obedience. Her mate was woefully unprepared for his son turning on him and calling his father’s loyalty into question.

If Ulquiorra was unprepared, Diaemus gave him no quarter, stepping up his relentless verbal attack.

“Do you mean to tell me, Father, that you would have let Aizen-Kami punish Mother for such an insignificant thing or raise a hand against _me_ when I was still a cub learning how to fly?” Diaemus asked, his entire body vibrating with pent up emotions and stress. “Do you love _him_ that bloody much, that you would put Kami-sama before _our_ well-being?”

Orihime could tell that their son’s pointed line of questioning had begun to get to Ulquiorra. Maybe it was the mental images that accompanied each query. They had certainly unsettled her. The thought of Aizen hurting her son made her ill. She could tell her mate was deeply disturbed. Even after all of this time and an amazing amount of progress over the years, he still had trouble dealing with feelings. Confronted now with the truth, Diaemus had all but asked his father to choose between the son and mate he loved and the leader he’d followed for so long, the same man who had given him a purpose in life all those years ago.

Maybe, she thought as she stood up and put her hand on her son’s arm, she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted Ulquiorra to answer right now, lest he end up backed into a corner from which pride would give him no easy way out.

“Diaemus, I think that’s enough,” Orihime said, fully entering the conversation.

“Don’t tell me you agree with him!” Diaemus exclaimed as he looked her way.

“I believe that no one should ever hurt someone else. You are both upset. I can understand why and I can sympathize. Nevertheless, yelling and screaming at your father is not going to change or undo the things that have already happened” she explained, her even tone belying the turmoil that lay beneath her calm façade.

“But…” Diaemus started to object.

“Diaemus Cifer!” Orihime said coldly, taking her son by surprise. “What do you think would happen to your father if he stepped in and tried to stop Aizen-Kami from doing anything he wanted to do?”

Her son’s mouth opened and closed a few times before his entire body slumped in defeat. Even Ajuga backed down, all of the fight suddenly going out of them with that simple question.

“Believe me, I truly understand why you’re both upset,” Orihime assured them both softly. “It is the same anger and frustration Karin-chan and Grimmjow-san feel every time they have to deal with the aftermath of one of Kami’s… whims. It is wrong, so very wrong.”

Orihime felt tears of her own threaten and she hastily blinked her eyes to keep them at bay, at least for now. “However, I need you to consider this: would we be doing Grantz-san a favour by trying to intervene? Or would we end up in his shoes as well?”

Neither child had a proper response for that question. Instead, they ended up looking at their feet. Ulquiorra didn’t appear to be any better, despite the fact he had remained silent while she placated the children. If anything, he seemed to be turned inwards, his expression identical to that of a lost puppy rather than a feared Espada.

“Ajuga-chan, Diaemus-kun, why don’t you two take a walk, maybe even spar a bit? It won’t fix anything, but it might help you work off some of your steam,” she suggested.

Diaemus looked like he was about to protest, obviously still wanting some sort of confirmation from his father that Ulquiorra would never let something like this happen to her, or him, but Orihime gave her son a look that told him to drop it for now.

“Yes mother,” he finally acquiesced, then turned on his heel and walked out the door without another word or another glance at his sire.

Ajuga scowled, but thankfully chose to follow Diaemus, leaving her alone with Ulquiorra. Orihime quickly put what needed to be refrigerated away before grabbing two spare blankets out of the hall closest, draping them over her arm. Throughout it all, Ulquiorra continued to stare emotionlessly into space, or at least, that was how it would look to an outsider. She knew him better than that though, better than anyone. His arms and shoulders were tight and she was sure his hands were balled into fists inside of his pockets. The fight to control his emotions had put an incredible amount of strain on him and the human woman knew that it would eventually have to find an outlet.

Walking up to her mate, she pulled him into her embrace. He shivered and let out a breath, his arms slowly wrapping round her as he focused on her. She intended to bring his thoughts out of the spiral of despair and back to the reality around them.

“Do you remember that place we made love years ago, before Diaemus was born? It was on a hill that overlooked the city,” she asked, murmuring the words in his ear.

“Yes,” he answered, with only a hint of the tension he was under in his voice.

She reached between them and grabbed Murcielago’s hilt before pulling the sheathed Zanpakuto free and pressing the hilt of the blade against his palm.

“Can you take me there,” she requested and gave him an imploring look for good measure.

For a moment she thought he was going to refuse, but then nodded and took the Zanpakuto from her.

“Tozase, Murcielago,” he whispered.

Orihime let out a shiver as his power rushed over them and he changed in her arms. His grip tightened around her and the world blurred as he took them to the spot she had requested. She let out a sigh and stepped away from him so she could lay the blankets out on the grass. Once she was satisfied, she slipped out of her clothes and looked up at him expectantly, her flesh starting to shiver in the chill air.

“You are being foolish,” he commented, his voice back under control. “You’ll catch a cold at this altitude.”

“Then it’s up to you to take care of me and keep me warm,” came her retort and she offered him a smile.

Ulquiorra sighed and shook his head before a wave of power washed over her as he changed again to his second, fur-covered form. His black reiatsu engulfed them, beating back the cold. The first time she had felt it, it had terrified her. Now…

‘ _So warm, so powerful, so safe. Is this how a babe feels in its mother_ _’_ _s womb?_ _’_ she couldn’t help but wonder.

Warm fur brushed her skin as he enveloped her in his arms again, his wings wrapping around her. Orihime let out a content sigh and rubbed her body against his. When Ulquiorra faced a moral dilemma like this, he had a tendency to think too much, his mind racing around in little circles like a dog chasing its tail or a hamster stuck running on a wheel. Orihime intended to make him stop thinking, and she knew just the way to do that. It involved reminding him that she loved him, faults and all. She suspected that after the altercation with their son, he badly needed that reassurance.

Ulquiorra didn’t resist as she led him down onto the blankets, pulling one of them over their bodies and cuddling. It didn’t take long for their body heat to start warming her up, his fur so very soft against her skin. She pulled his head down for a kiss, slipping her tongue into his mouth and moaning in pleasure. His body stiffened against hers briefly, before he relaxed and returned her kiss.

For some reason he was always more demonstrative in his released state. The reason for that eluded her, but it didn’t matter. What mattered now was that he was open to her, his mind and thoughts on her alone. She almost chuckled at that thought, recalling when there had been a time _h_ **e** demanded the same thing of _her_ while they coupled. How the tides had turned.

He started to respond more aggressively to her touch, and she happily let him, even encouraged him. His mouth broke off from hers and he began to nip and suck at her neck, before working his way down to her breasts. One clawed hand stroked her inner thigh before working its way towards the copper-colored curls between her legs. She had been apprehensive of his claws in the past and she hadn’t been a willing participant back then either, but she trusted him now. He had supreme control over every physical aspect of his body and she knew he wouldn’t hurt her.

She gasped as two fingers wormed their way inside of her before stroking her insides, working up a friction that left her writhing with need. His mouth continued to lay nipping kisses on her breasts, all the while being mindful of where his massive horns ended up. It would be a real killjoy to be bashed or stabbed in the face with them. Her own hands returned the pleasure he was granting her. One hand was tangled in his thick mane of black hair, fingers massaging his scalp in a way that made his green eyes close halfway and his expression turn dreamy. The other hand ran up and down his back, bypassing the hole that went through his chest.

“Onna…” he whispered in a heated voice.

She tugged sharply on a lock of his dark hair with the hand she had buried in it.

“Orihime,” he corrected himself.

“Ulquiorra,” she purred back, shifting her thighs further apart, silently inviting him to take her.

He needed no further encouragement. Briefly, she felt all too empty as he removed his fingers from her. A moment later, Ulquiorra loomed over her and Orihime gasped as he entered her with practiced ease. Her hands found his shoulders and her nails dug in as he started to thrust wildly into her. Green eyes glazed over with lust as her body moved against him, well in tune with his. His feather-like fur against her skin felt better than being wrapped in all the finest silks in the world. The small clearing soon filled with the sound of her moans and loud cries of pleasure as well as his desperate pants while they rutted like wild animals. She knew his thoughts were now solely on her and on their mutual pleasure.

Her insides quaked and she let out a scream of raw joy as the friction against the spot where their bodies intimately joined rocked her over the edge into a sea of blissful contentment. She felt him pause briefly before he started moving at a faster pace, his hands digging into her hips as he sat back a bit so that he could gaze down at her. She must have made quite the sight; her breasts bounced with each sharp thrust he made into her body, her sweat-drenched skin glistened in the rays of the setting sun and her mouth opened wide as she panted with renewed pleasure. Her hair fanned out on the blanket below them like a reddish-gold halo and one of his hands reached out to take a handful of it, letting it run through his fingers.

His back suddenly arched, his tail going out straight and still while the rest of him trembled with his release. The shaft buried inside of her pulsed as spurt after spurt of his cum filled her. Her own walls quivered again as his orgasm triggered another for her and she made sure to deliberately clamp her inner muscles down on him, milking another two spurts from him. That little trick caused his mouth to open in a soundless cry.

Exhausted, he collapsed against her, but he was mindful enough to use his forearms to keep most of his weight off of her. His chest brushed continuously against hers and they both breathed heavily, trying to catch their collective breath in the aftermath. It took several minutes for him to regain some semblance of control over his lungs and moved to lie down beside her before pulling her flush against him. He folded his wings around her and readjusted the top blanket so they were appropriately covered. It definitely didn’t take long for their overheated bodies to warm the little nest they had made.

She really didn’t want to break the loving mood, but if there was a time to try to help him, it was now, before his mind went back to fretting over the dilemma with which his son presented him this afternoon. It wouldn’t do to have him obsess over the revelations, nor try to apply logic to Aizen’s deeds in a vain attempt to justify his leader’s actions, not when the ex-Shinigami had violated nearly all of the Arrancars’ admittedly few behavioural standards. At the very least, she could use this time to help let her mate down easy about his chosen idol.

“You know, after the Winter War, I never thought that I would ever be happy laying here in your arms, let alone feel so safe tucked under your wings,” she began, reaching up to stroke his hair and brush a few strands of it out of his eyes. “I never thought that I would be able to love you, to feel something other than pity and sadness.”

She gave him a moment to digest that.

“But then, you changed. It was gradual, but eventually you started to show me that you truly cared about me and you tried to understand what things like my freedom meant to me. I can’t remember the exact moment that I truly fell in in love with you. It didn’t happen all at once and it sort of crept up on me, because I never felt it coming. I just woke up one day and realized that I did.

“Everyone changes over time, Ulquiorra. Look at Grimmjow. Fifteen years ago, he would have been in everyone’s faces, swearing and spitting like a wild alley cat. These days, well, he still swears a lot when Karin isn’t listening, but he has mellowed out. He thinks about the consequences before jumping in. He actually considers the welfare of people other than himself and even you cannot deny that he deeply loves his mate and child and would do anything for them.”

She paused for a moment, letting him absorb her words.

“What is your point?” he finally asked.

Orihime sighed, and decided to be straight with him. She hoped he would be able to accept her next words, and that they helped address the conflict within him where it came to Aizen and the truth about their leader. She would even argue that this was something that he had been trying to ignore, but had eaten at him anyway, since the day he had learned that Aizen had raped Szayel. What Ajuga and their son had told them had forced him into a personal crisis. Aizen’s transgressions and the danger he posed couldn’t be overlooked any longer and it was best if Ulquiorra at least faced it squarely.

“Everyone changes with time, Ulquiorra. I am not going to say that, at some point in the past, perhaps when you first met him, Aizen wasn’t worthy of your loyalty. He probably was every bit the leader you respected then. He might have even truly wanted to change things in the Seireitei the way he claimed. But there is an old saying about how absolute power can corrupt absolutely. Aizen has had absolute power for a while now and he is not the person you once admired. Not anymore.”

He tensed in her arms, but when he made no effort to silence her, Orihime plunged back into the task of trying to frame the situation in a way he might be able to understand and accept.

“Do you remember, back in Los Noches, when Aizen made you my guard?”

Her mate nodded and she let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding.

“Well, there wasn’t much to do there, so I watched everyone, trying to figure out who was who and what they were doing, maybe to help find a way to help my friends. I studied Aizen every chance I got, which wasn’t all that often, I’ll admit, but still…”

Orihime trailed off and then gently reached down and placed her hand over the one wrapped around her waist, lacing their fingers together.

“The Aizen I remember, from that time, would never have harmed his own subordinates, let alone a child, for something so trivial. Even after the War…he never raised a hand to Diaemus-kun or Ajuga-chan or even Hana-chan, and we both know that those three have gotten into enough trouble over the years. Even I would have to admit that some of the things they pulled deserved a spanking from Kami-sama. But that has changed. Now he has threatened to harm Abisara-kun when all the child was doing was trying to help his father. That’s not acceptable, by any standard and we both know it.”

She let some of the fear she’d felt earlier seep into her voice with her next words.

“I… I don’t trust that he’ll follow his own rules anymore. If he’s willing to hurt a five-year-old boy because he’s targeted the child’s father, what will he do next? Will he go after our own child for failing to kill enough locusts in the next battle? Will he threaten the other children like the ones Tatsuki-chan and Rangiku-chan carry?

“I am not asking you to desert him, or lead a mutiny or anything,” she told him, squeezing his fingers. “I just think that it may be time to ask yourself whether or not he is still worthy of your absolute devotion, if perhaps _some_ of his orders and ideals might need to be scrutinized.. Perhaps he has gone so long without anyone questioning or challenging him that he’s begun to think of himself as infallible. Everyone is so afraid of him, his power and his Zanpakuto that no one’s willing to step in and say ‘no’ to him, even if it’s the right thing to do.”

She couldn’t think of anything else to say so she stopped there.

Ulquiorra remained silent behind her, but his grip on her tightened. She left him to his thoughts, having shared hers on the subject. It would be up to him now. Despite the turmoil the situation had caused, she found herself drifting off while surrounded by the warmth created by his arms, his wings and the blankets as well as his body heat and this soft fur. When she next woke up, it was to the sound of early morning birdsong and she was tucked into their bed at home.

She stretched and rose, noticing that their home was unusually quiet. Ulquiorra was long gone. She sighed, feeling a little gloomy in the stillness of the empty house and pulled on a yukata before getting up for the day. Diaemus wasn’t at home either and from the state of his room, it appeared that his bed hadn’t been slept in. That worried her a little, but given what had happened the previous day, she could see him going home with Ajuga and having supper with her family. He’d done so many times over the years, often on short notice. What she really hoped was that father and son were off making amends, or at least having a serious discussion.

She unconsciously sought out Ulquiorra’s reiatsu, and fear clenched her as she realized he was at the Palace, with Grimmjow, and Szayel. At first, she was afraid that he’d taken her words as literal advice and confronted Aizen about what he’d learned. Then she realized that the three Espada weren’t alone. Karin, Hana, Toshiro and Harribel were there as well.

“What’s going on?” she worried aloud, speaking out into the deserted kitchen, all thoughts of breakfast abandoned. Then she was hurriedly slipping on her shoes.

Without even thinking about changing her clothing, she dashed out onto the street and made her way towards the Palace, ignoring the strange looks she received from other passersbyers as she dashed around them. The guards let her through the gate, not even stopping her to ask her why she was there. The throne room wasn’t all that hard to find and she used Ulquiorra’s agitated energy as a guide. Short of breath from running, she pushed on the doors to the throne room with all her might and when they opened before her, rushed through them.

She wasn’t sure what to expect, but a near-catatonic Karin, an extremely pissed-off Grimmjow, a half-beaten-to-death Hana and a nervous and sweating Szayel weren’t it. Worse, Ulquiorra had the look of a man who had been punched in the gut with a sledgehammer. The only two who seemed even remotely composed were Toshiro and Harribel. Hana stood between them, leaning on Toshiro’s arm for support, Harribel’s hand in the middle of the girl’s back.

“What’s going on?” she demanded as she rushed to Ulquiorra’s side.

The distraught look her mate gave Orihime stunned her. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders in a gesture of silent comfort, a display of emotion he would _never_ have indulged in public, let alone before Aizen.

“Orihime-chan,” the ex-Shinigami on the throne addressed her, calling her attention to him. “I am afraid I have some unfortunate news for you…”


	39. A Series of Unfortunate Events

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title says it all

Karin walked down the hallway that led to Mushi’s cell while Tatsuki, Rangiku and Soi Fon wrapped up their respective checkups. Part of her hoped that what she was about to attempt would work. They had no guarantee Mushi understood her words any more than an untrained dog might. The other, probably saner part of her, the part that didn’t like trouble or drawing unneeded attention, hoped it didn’t. The bet she was about to make was a dangerous one, but it was a risk she had to take. There was no help for it.

Time was running out on a lot of different fronts. The Realms were going to start destabilizing again, with the vastly reduced number of Shinigami distracted by the Swarm. Unable to perform their duties, the balance of souls was once again out-of-kilter. Then there was Aizen and his efforts to tighten the noose around the Espada and their ‘pets’, forcing them to jump through the hoops of his choosing in whatever twisted manner he wanted. Szayel had once confessed to her his fear that Aizen was taking an interest in his children, but before this incident it had only been that, a fear. Now Aizen had finally seen fit to raise his hand to Szayel’s son. He had done so with the sole intent of manipulating Szayel into his ‘playroom’, but Karin had no doubt that had Szayel not fallen into Aizen’s trap, that ‘Kami-sama’ would have punished Abisara.

Aizen had grown impatient as the years passed and Unohana remained barren. There were rumours going around that he had been seen searching the Seireitei’s archive, combing through the histories of the Noble Houses to try and find any hint of Royal Blood that might still be here. That put Hana at risk. Aizen already knew Shunsui was Hana’s father and, like all the great Noble Houses, the Kyoraku line was descended from the Royal line. Just because Szayel had told Aizen there was nothing odd about Hana’s blood when she was still a child didn’t mean that the hidden markers might not activate now that she was older and coming into her abilities. Aizen just might decide to check himself and Karin knew _that_ would not end well.

She made sure to turn the recording equipment off before entering Mushi’s pen. The scarab twittered happily and she couldn’t help but smile as she placed her hand on the insect‘s head.

“Mushi, I need you to do something for me, if you can,” she whispered, resting her forehead against the exoskeleton that covered the scarab’s head. Mushi stopped her twittering, but Karin didn’t know if it was because she was listening or because Karin had brought their heads into contact. She hoped it was for the former reason and continued with the speech she had worked out on her way here.

“There was a General once, who told me who and what I was. I want to speak to him, alone. There is a clearing outside the city, one created by two fighting Espada, which my mate uses as a training ground. I want to speak to that General, just the two of us. Can you relay that information? Does your ability to communicate reach that far?” she asked.

Mushi chattered and chirped softly, but Karin wasn’t certain if it was an affirmation or just a pleased greeting. Still, she had to try.

“I will be there when the sun is at its zenith for a while. If possible, get him to meet me then. If not, ask him to leave a message of some sort and I will try to arrange another time. I am connected to my mate more strongly than even you are to your companions. If he doesn’t come alone or if he tries something, I will fight, and my mate will end his life. This is the only chance I am giving you guys to talk to me, to try and convince me to do what you want.”

She let out a deep breath and took a step back and hoped that if the message did get through, that everything would work out. This was a dangerous path she was about to take and Grimmjow would do more than tan her hide if he found out what she had planned.

Mushi let out a twitter of disappointment and Karin couldn’t help but to pat her head twice before turning and leaving, making sure to turn the recording equipment back on. Soi Fon waited for her in the main entranceway and the two women started on the return journey to Ukitake’s Estate in silence, each lost in their own thoughts.

“It’s such a beautiful day today, wouldn’t you agree?” a smooth voice called out, taking them both by surprise.

Karin and Soi Fon whirled to see a smiling Yumichika flowing towards them, his silks rippling after him like waves in a ship’s wake. She often wondered how anyone, let alone a man, could walk with such grace and yet Yumichika not only did so, but made it look effortless. She almost envied him the ability.

“It is a nice day,” Karin agreed, returning his smile.

Beside her, Soi Fon tensed before giving Yumichika a hopeful look. Barragan had forbidden Ggio from having anything to do with her, so any communications between the two separated lovers had to come from a third party. As Barragan kept Ggio locked in a kennel except when performing his assigned duties, as punishment for a perceived lapse in loyalty towards the Espada he’d once faithfully served, Yumichika was the only person capable of assisting the two.

Soi Fon continued to stare beseechingly at Yumichika, obviously waiting for any news he might have about Ggio. They had all tried to catch sight of him during battles, but Aizen rarely deployed Barragan and his contingent close to her household and since Soi Fon was now part of Starrk’s household, she usually fought with Karin and her squad.

Yumichika’s presence might actually work in her favour today. Karin needed to see if her message to Mushi got through and she doubted Soi Fon and Yumichika would want her about for what ought to remain a private conversation. This was the perfect opportunity to slip away without having to provide a weak excuse.

“I have things I need to take care of in the next few hours. Would you mind escorting Soi Fon home for me, Yumichika-san?” she inquired.

“I would be honoured to,” he replied with a bow and a flourish of his hand.

“Thank you so much. I’ll leave you two to talk. It was good to see you again.”

“You as well, Karin-san.”

She left the two friends behind. Hopefully Yumichika would have something good to tell Soi Fon but Karin wouldn’t have put any money on it, judging by the stress lines around his eyes. It seemed as if everyone was on edge lately, as if some malevolent tension permeated the very air, affecting everyone and everything. Karin compared it to a giant rubber band, stretched too tightly around the whole of the Soul Society, until it was ready to snap. When it did finally break, the results would be ugly.

It took some time, for she was not as fast as either Grimmjow or Ulquiorra, to reach the clearing she had designated as the meeting spot. Karin noticed the recently added scars all over the surrounding landscape and could still ‘see’ the last lingering traces of Renji and Grimmjow’s reiatsu, proof not only of their collective idiocy, but also that the two had thrown all they had at one another. Despite her displeasure about their most recent attempt at tearing each other limb-from-limb in what ought to have been a simple sparring match, it relieved her to know that they had both found an outlet for their anger that didn’t involve innocents, the wholesale destruction of one of the Districts or deliberately pissing Aizen off.

Leaning against a large tree trunk to protect her back, Karin settled down and entered _Jinzen_ , both to help her to see the Swarm’s miniscule amount of reiatsu if her attempt at contact had been successful and to help her ease her own anger at Aizen’s latest atrocities. At least _she_ knew better than to try to go all-out in some masculine, testosterone-ridden pissing contest to try to work out frustrated aggression.

She wasn’t expecting a response right away. After all, the message had to be received, decoded and pondered over. It might, or might not even be acknowledged, depending on whether or not the recipient, if there was one, understood her language. There was also the distance issue. It might take time for the person she wanted to talk to get to the clearing. They were, however, coming up on sixty hours since the last battle so there was a distinct possibility that there might already be another invasion force on the way. If anyone had received her message while the portals were still up, the General might just come through on the hind-end of the latest cloud of insects.

Karin spotted the odd reiatsu signatures around five o’clock in the afternoon, just as she was ready to give up and head home to start on dinner. She peered at them before deciding that they belonged to the Swarm. Judging by the sizes, she guessed at two beetles, two dozen locusts and what she hoped was the specific General she had asked for. At the very least, she wished it wasn’t one that spoke in half-buzzes. Karin stood up, ready to fight and run if need be and reaffirmed her bond with her mate.

The small delegation stopped as soon as she stood up, still some distance away and lurking in the trees, while the General approached without the slightest hint of discomfort or weariness. She didn’t really blame him for coming with an escort; after all this could have easily been a trap to get their hands on him or her.

“Kurosaki Karin, we meet again.”

He greeted her perfectly, without any of the odd inflections tainting the speech of every other General she’d ever heard. That creature stood before her now, at a respectful distance.

She winced at the use of her family name, but didn’t bother to correct him, as she had bigger issues to discuss with him.

“I feel at a disadvantage… I don’t know your name.”

He inclined his head, as if the idea of a personal name was somehow foreign to him.

“A human tongue would have trouble sounding out my individual designation.”

“I would feel more comfortably having a name to address you by. ‘General’ seems so... general.”

She was stalling, not having expected this to happen as quickly as it did. Now that he was in front of her, close enough to grab her, Karin was having second thoughts about the whole thing. She should have talked to Grimmjow and Szayel, probably even Starrk before going forward with something this reckless. She’d worked off of assumptions and done things that might potentially affect them all, behind their backs.

 _Still, even knowing the option is there, that the Swarm might be interested, is a step,_ she tried to reassure herself. _Perhaps they might even have ideas I never thought of, and it looks like this one is willing to talk, maybe even negotiate. Anything to decrease the number of battles and save lives. Besides, I might be able to learn some things that have been bothering us for some time and I know Szayel will appreciate that._

“If you must call me something pronounceable in your tongue, you may call me ‘Zee,’ for now. It is straightforward enough for most of the others to understand.”

The name was simple and efficient. While not a moniker meant to strike fear into the hearts of others, it would serve its purpose and the rest of the Swarm would know who she was talking about if it came to it. That was all that mattered.

“You seem to know a lot about my so-called ‘bloodline.’ How do you know about it and what is your mission here?” Karin asked.

‘Zee’ widened his stance and crossed his arms behind this back, as if standing at attention before he replied.

“We come from a different ‘heaven’ you could say. It is a Realm distinctly different from this one. When this ‘Aizen’ took the Throne and destroyed the Spirit King’s dimension and those who dwelled within, the balance between all of the Realms destabilized. The barrier separating our two ‘worlds’ was damaged. We came through to find the Ruler’s Palace painted with the blood of those that once lived and worked there. Our scholars set out to learn what had taken place. That was how we learned of what this non-Royal upstart ‘Aizen’ had done and the coup he’d staged.

“We sent our drones to search for any possible surviving members of the Royal Family, so that the balance might be restored while directing the majority of our forces to kill the interloper. As you pointed out to me during our last discussion, putting the proper heir on the Throne will do little good if this Aizen will only kill them. It was in our search through what was left of the Royal Realm’s records that we learned of the King’s youngest son, Isshin, who had left the spirit dimension in favour of a life in what you call ‘the Living World.’

“By perusing those records we followed the trail to your brother, Kurosaki Ichigo. Unfortunately, his reiatsu is dark and tainted with that of a Hollow. He is no longer pure and that fact takes him out of the line of succession. This is unfortunate, because he has the raw power to stand up to the usurper. We had, at that point, given up hope of finding an heir and prayed that Aizen’s elimination would at least stop the Realms from shifting further. They were set adrift by Aizen’s actions and we surmised that the various dimensions would at least work out some kind of natural balance without an evil hand at the helm.

“Then, one of our drones tasted your blood and we renewed our mission to place a true Royal on the seat of the Spirit King. Regrettably, you were not willing to come with us. I will confess your reasons for eschewing the Throne have merit and I understand your reluctance to co-operate. However, the fact that you have asked to speak to me of your own volition leads me to believe that you may have changed your mind and that you realize that you must assume your bloodline’s obligations.”

Karin listened to Zee’s speech intently. It certainly confirmed that the Swarm came from another dimension and that their sole aim was to kill Aizen and restore the balance, not to destroy the Seireitei or its denizens outright. It also told her how they’d become aware of the Royal Blood in her veins. There was one thing she had to know before she even considered taking the conversation any further.

“If Aizen were to die, and a proper heir put on the Throne, would you return to your own dimension and leave us in peace?”

Karin asked this in order to know if she was dealing with a force sent to solve a problem or one bent on invasion and colonization once they’d removed Aizen from his seat of power.

“If the balance was restored, yes,” Zee answered without hesitation. “We’ve no desire to be here. The air is far too thin for our liking, the food less than acceptable as well as less plentiful and the temperature inhospitable for long periods of time.”

That was a good start. If they could get Aizen away from the city, which they would need to do for any real battle to occur, they might just be able to count on the Swarm to help. She doubted even Aizen could survive a dip in beetle acid, immortal or not, Hogyoku or not.

 _Maybe I can get them to douse Yammy while I am at it,_ she couldn’t help but think nastily. Then she met Zee’s gaze directly.

“I am not saying ‘yes’ to your idea of placing me on the Throne, not at this moment in time. There’s been some… chafing under Aizen’s rule and he may find his own Arrancar turning against him if he keeps abusing them and breaking his own laws. _If_ Aizen were to die, I will agree to sit on the Throne.”

The very idea terrified her. She had no desire to rule the Realms, let alone the knowledge to do so, but it was a better option than letting the universe fall apart while standing by and doing nothing.

“Aizen does not know of my lineage and it is best to keep it that way. If he were to find out he would just try to breed an heir from me, raping his way into the Royal line as he’s tried to do for the last fifteen years. If we can get Aizen out of the city and engaged in battle, would you assist in fighting him without attacking us?” she asked.

“Our Queen has ordered us to kill this Aizen. He must die and the Realms must be re-stabilized.”

Karin had a feeling that was the closest thing to a ‘yes’ she was going to get, and that was definitely something to consider. With it came hope that this endless war with the Swarm could end. Coordinating such a difficult ambush would take a great deal of work and time wasn’t on her side. She had to speak to the others and she had to finally swallow her pride and contact the Escapees if the half-baked idea forming in her brain had any chance of succeeding. She would need to either wait until she saw Yoruichi again or until Nel returned to refresh Renji’s Claim, whichever occurred first.

“Look, I think we might be able get Aizen out of the city, but it’s not going to happen tomorrow. There are a lot of things that need to be done beforehand or the Realms will start to slip further out of balance. I also need to coordinate with another group… my brother’s group,” she confessed after a moment.

Thinking about Ichigo was still relatively painful. There was no guarantee her brother would even acknowledge her anymore. She had shot him down every time she had seen him since the War ended and she’d taken up with the man who had almost killed him, putting Grimmjow ahead of her own family.

Karin stopped herself before she could come up with a dozen reasons why Ichigo wouldn’t want to deal with her, as it was irrelevant at this point. In all likelihood, she’d be talking to Yoruichi anyway and the shape-shifter had no qualms about working with Karin.

“I can’t however, coordinate all of this if we keep getting drawn into battles. Is it possible to stop the attacks, or reduce their frequency? You usually leave off attacking around this time of year anyway. Putting a stop to them now wouldn’t be too suspicious.”

Zee seemed to think about it, taking his time to deliberate her proposal. It was either that, or he was relaying her request and the content of their conversation to rest of the Swarm. Karin couldn’t really tell and didn’t have a way to find out, though she suspected the latter.

“Too few battles might put this Aizen on alert. In addition, we have no reason to trust you. Her Majesty has agreed to curtail the attacks to one every four sunrises, but until the usurper is dead, we will not cease in our mission.”

It was a better-than-expected outcome. To get those extra two days of peace made this entire meeting worthwhile. It was the first little glimmer of hope she had seen, the first hint that Aizen’s reign of terror might come to an end. ‘Zee’ gave her an openly appraising look, one that cut into her good mood and reminded her that he was still, technically, her enemy.

“I should take you now, Kurosaki Karin, but I will leave the field today as a show of trust that you will bring Aizen to us,” he said.

“It’s Karin _Jaegerjaquez_ ,” she snapped back, annoyed that he’d still seen fit to threaten her, despite her willingness to try to work with him.

He bowed slightly at the waist as she irritably corrected him.

“Very well then, Karin Jaegerjaquez. When next we see one another, I hope it is over Aizen’s corpse and to celebrate your Ascension.”

With those parting words, Zee disappeared. Karin blinked in surprise as he up and vanished on her. She knew he was fast, as he had escaped from a furious Grimmjow during their first encounter, but she still marvelled that he had that kind of speed at his disposal. Then again, the meeting had gone much better than she anticipated, so she focused on that instead.

_Next stop, Grimmjow and Szayel. It_ _’_ _s time to see what they think of this whole, insane idea. After what just happened with Abisara, I_ _’_ _m sure that Szayel will be all for it. We should involve Renji, provided we can pry him away from the children long enough to enlist his help. If I don_ _’_ _t see Yoruichi first, we will have to get him to send her a message via Nel. She should be ready to swing by in a couple of months to refresh his Claim._

There were a lot of things she needed to do now that she’d decided to stage a full-on assassination. There were people that she needed to approach cautiously, and Szayel would do a much better job of planning this sort of operation than she could. She knew Grimmjow would happily put Aizen in the ground. He had never really been fond of Kami-sama and followed simply because he liked living and Aizen wasn’t the sort that took ‘no’ for an answer. Starrk and Ulquiorra were the ones on the proverbial ‘fence’. Harribel _might_ join them too, especially if she got wind of Aizen’s plans for Abisara. Karin counted Barragan as a possible ally only because the information she had on him indicated that he despised Aizen for deposing him. She doubted he would make a move unless assured of the rebellion’s victory, however.

With a million thoughts on her mind, Karin returned to the city. She had to stop by her Division and make sure tonight’s patrol schedule was ready. She was on the evening shift. She would have to talk to her mate as well when she got home after midnight. It had been over a week since they’d had sex and she knew he would ambush her when she got home, claiming deprivation. He was, after all, a horny panther.

_There she is,_ Ajuga thought, glad her nose was working properly. She’d given up trying to control her temper on the third re-telling of Gin’s story. _I didn’t think she’d be this far out._

“Ajuga-chan, Diaemus-kun!”

Hana stopped and gave them a cheery greeting as the two hybrids caught up to her.

Ajuga and Diaemus had taken Orihime’s order to ‘go for a walk’ to heart. Before either one of them realized what they were doing, they had unconsciously sought out Hana and joined her on her patrol. Out here in the wild, Ajuga could give her frustrations free rein without needing to worry about anyone overhearing. The Arrancar assigned to parallel Hana on her route didn’t argue when Diaemus informed him they would take over his portion of the patrol. Ajuga had never bothered to learn his name. No one was going to say no to Ulquiorra and Grimmjow’s offspring, lest they upset those Espada, and Grimmjow had a long track record of doing unpleasant things to those that irritated him. Besides, to an Arrancar, patrol duty equalled boredom itself. The Hollow took off, seeming a little relieved at the reprieve and casting them a grateful look as he made himself scarce.

“You two look as if someone just danced on your graves. What’s up?” Hana inquired worriedly, once she took in their dark expressions “Is this about Szay? He was fine this morning but if something else happened…”

“It’s about Szay,” Ajuga confirmed, her eyes narrow and hostile. “…as well as Abisara and Vindula,” she added. Hana’s jaw dropped and the young Shinigami suddenly looked aghast.

“Ajuga, what happened? Are they hurt? Did Aizen do anything to them?”

Ajuga didn’t blame her for the undercurrent of fear in the other girl’s voice. Little Vindula had wormed her way into their hearts from the moment the other girls met her. All she wanted was to explore the world with her ‘Ji-ji’ and find every pretty thing in it to show Yumi-san. It had taken a little work on their part to figure out the identity of the ‘Silk Prince’ Vindula went on and on about, but once they’d pinned a name on the supposed paragon of virtue, she and Hana had made it a point to track down Barragan’s pet on the days he managed to get away from the Second’s Estate and drop in on him with the winged child in tow. He’d always been delighted to see her. If anyone embodied the concept of ‘innocence’ perfectly, it was Vindula. There wasn’t a vicious bone in her body, and it showed the few times they had tried taking her out for stalking lessons. Vindula was no more a hunter than her tech-savvy brother and the thought of anyone hurting her made Ajuga’s blood boil.

“Nothing, at least, not today. Listen to this...”

The results were… unexpected. Ajuga had barely gotten two paragraphs into her story, already starting another round of pacing when, without warning, Hana took two steps towards her and slapped her.

“BAKA!! You promised me you wouldn’t do something so dangerous again!” Hana shouted, going from ‘concerned’ to ‘furious’ in a matter of seconds. “And here I find out you went ahead and did it anyway! How could you, Ajuga? Do you have any idea what Aizen would do to you if he caught you?”

Ajuga blinked as the force of the blow knocked her face to the side, her rage at Aizen evaporating in the face of Hana’s anger. The hybrid’s Hierro absorbed the blow and the only thing to take any damage was Ajuga’s pride. Diaemus’s jaw dropped and he looked at Hana with no small amount of shock as well as a little confusion. Ajuga cursed to herself. Of course he had no clue as to why Hana would be upset at her. As far as Ajuga was concerned, the only ones that knew of her past trips to the Palace were her father, Hana, and Gin. She could add Diaemus and his family to that list now, which made it less than a secret.

“Umm… how did you know I got the information from Gin-san?” Ajuga asked, running her fingers over her jaw, even if there was no pain. Hana gave her a thin-lipped, irritated look and put her hands on her hips. She added an expression that asked ‘seriously?’

“Who else would have known about everything you just told us? It wouldn’t take long to figure out who told you those things either! You could get Gin in deep trouble depending on who you tell!”

Hana glowered at Ajuga before she went back to the issue that had truly crawled under her skin.

“You promised me that you would stop sneaking in! Did you even stop to think about that before you decided to go ahead and do what you wanted anyway?”

This time, at least, Ajuga broke eye contact and stared at her feet. The problem with her best friend was that the Shinigami had brought up some things that she, admittedly, hadn’t really considered before she’d gone to Diaemus, so she tried to cobble together a quick defence.

“I did try to limit my visits, and I made sure to be extra careful,” Ajuga sighed. “I wanted to see if Gin was alright or if he was in the same condition as Szay.”

Hana threw her hands up in the air in exasperation and reached down to rub her forehead.

“Diaemus, _you_ try talking to her,” the Shinigami growled, turning to the youngest of their little trio. “She obviously could give two shits about _my_ opinion!”

“Now wait, Hana…” Ajuga began, when Diaemus snorted and looked away as well.

“Why do you believe she would listen to me?” he replied, cutting off Ajuga in mid-protest, though he did a double-take at Hana’s rare use of profanity.

Hana sighed heavily as Ajuga ‘hmmph’ed’ at the other girl, managing to look both apologetic to Hana about the promise and at the same time, unrepentant about her trips to the Palace. It was an expression she’d seen her father use all of the time with her mother and she thought it might work in this situation too. Her friend was well and truly pissed off and Ajuga suspected she’d crossed some invisible line with the whole ‘promise’ thing.

“Look, I’m sorry I didn’t keep my word, but I just couldn’t leave Gin-san to suffer so much when something as small as me visiting him and slipping him food makes him happy. It’s the same reason I keep visiting Byakuya-san, even when…”

Ajuga trailed off suddenly catching a frightfully familiar scent on the wind. “Swarm!” she hissed, dropping down to all fours and instantly hiding her reiatsu.

Diaemus and Hana quickly went on alert themselves, their budding argument instantly forgotten in the face of a much bigger problem.

“Where and how many?”

Hana whispered the inquiry, since she knew both Diaemus and Ajuga would be able to hear her.

“Four o’ clock. Two beetles, maybe a dozen or two locusts.”

Ajuga took another deep sniff of the air and went completely still as the information reached her nose. “I think…” she took another deep breath just to be sure. “A General!” she hissed. “There is a General here!”

Diaemus and Hana froze and shared a look between them.

“This could be our chance to capture one of the Swarm’s leaders for interrogation,” Diaemus said thoughtfully. Hana bit her lip nervously and Ajuga wondered why the other girl appeared to be wrestling with some inner dilemma.

“I don’t think we can take on the beetles, but at the same time, if we sound the alarm the General might escape, and we would lose this chance to capture it. Diaemus, you are, by far, the fastest. Do you think you can separate those beetles from the rest, lead them away from the main group and stay out of range of their acid?” Hana asked.

“With ease,” he replied confidently. Hana nodded and outlined the plan as quickly as she could, looking back and forth at Diaemus and Ajuga.

“If we can neutralize the beetles by getting them out of the way, Ajuga can take out a couple of dozen locusts. I can bind up the General with Kido and we can haul him back to Szay. We have to move fast though.”

“Sounds simple enough,” Ajuga chuckled. “Maybe bringing a General in will get Aizen to cool off for a bit. It might even get him to stop being such an asshole and give Szay a break.”

“One can hope,” Hana agreed, though she seemed apprehensive about something.

“Let’s do this,” Ajuga smirked, moving in on their targets.

Ajuga found it hard _not_ to conceal her reiatsu completely; Hana and Diaemus needed to track her as she moved in on their mutual prey. Once there, she could stop thinking about it and let it disappear, but for now she had to put as much focus on keeping her reiatsu visible as she did on trailing the Swarm’s latest incursion. She didn’t think to ask why the Swarm had sent such a small patrol and if she was honest with herself, she didn’t care. Szayel could extract all of _that_ information from the General after they caught it, if she and her friends could take it alive.

They saw the large beetles first, their massive bulks easy to spot. As soon as they were in sight, Ajuga let her reiatsu completely disappear as she stalked towards her prey. This would be a true test of the skills her father had mercilessly drilled into her over the years and which she had tried to hone at every opportunity. In addition, snagging a General would finally prove to her mother that she was ready to participate as a full member of an Arrancar unit.

Diaemus struck first, two green bolts of light striking each beetle. There was a loud call of chittering and the entire Swarm took off after Diaemus, both beetles and all two dozen locusts. Ajuga winced; it wasn’t quite the results they’d wanted, but Ajuga had faith that Diaemus could deal with them. That left her and Hana to deal with the General and Ajuga figured that unintentionally getting the leader alone would work in their favour. She didn’t know how powerful a General could get, the one she had killed with Hana and Diaemus had been nothing special in her eyes, but they had to be capable of putting up a decent fight, if her father’s curses over the one that had gotten away from him all those years ago were any indication of its battle prowess and speed.

The General hadn’t taken off after his troops. Instead, it continued to fly on its own. From Ajuga’s perspective, the thing almost seemed distracted, as if its attention was elsewhere.

That, the hybrid girl thought smugly, was going to be its first and possibly last mistake. Ajuga got ahead of it and quickly picked out a spot to lie in wait along the route that she’d guessed the creature would fly, crouching down in anticipation. Her heart raced as it approached her hiding spot, the adrenaline building in her system.

Diaemus’s mother had told them to ‘go for a walk.’ Wait until Orihime-san found out what they’d managed to drag in, Ajuga thought with an inward grin.

Hana struck first, ropes of Kido wrapping around their target to bind it. Ajuga leaped out of her hiding spot, ready to pin their prey to the ground, and instead choked as the General snapped the chains of energy as if they were nothing. It was too late for Ajuga to veer off either. He caught her around the throat in a move so quick she hadn’t seen it and tossed her violently to the side. Only her natural agility and trained reflexes let her twist in the air and lands all fours against the tree trunk instead of smashing into it spine-first.

“Shit!”

Ajuga heard Hana curse as she fired off another, stronger set of Kido bindings while Ajuga launched herself off the trunk and back towards her prey. The General was only a yard away and she had her claws extended, ready to grab him the moment the bindings hit him.

Their target up and vanished.

Ajuga had to duck as Hana’s Kido shot passed within inches of her head. They’d both missed him and yet Ajuga knew her timing wasn’t off. He’d just moved faster than either girl could follow with their naked eyes.

Hana let out a startled cry of pain and Ajuga darted around to see her friend fending off two of the locusts. She realized that two insects had stayed behind, creeping up on the Shinigami girl in an effort to guard the General’s back. The locusts chasing after Diaemus had been a ruse, one they had stupidly fallen for. Hana’s sense of smell wasn’t as strong as hers and the Swarm had little reiatsu to sense. They’d easily taken the young woman, preoccupied with the General, unawares.

“Foolish children, did you think it so easy to assault one such as I?”

Ajuga’s gaze snapped up to where the General was standing higher up in one of the trees. The hybrid hated the condescending tone of ‘his’ voice when he spoke and her lip curled in a snarl.

“I was hoping, but this will make it more fun,” Ajuga smirked up at him before darting over to help Hana, her sharp claws easily ending the life of one insect while Hana wrestled her Zanpakuto free and ran it through the second.

Her sensitive ears could hear most of the locusts coming back, but at least they were ready for them. Hana took a step back and started chanting the phrases her Kido spells required, shortly before balls of fire and shots of lightning flew from her hands.

The girl hadn’t aimed the spells at the locusts. Instead, she’d pointed them directly at the General. Ajuga ignored the explosions as they splintered the tree limb on which he’d been balanced. She focused on shredding the damn locusts, her claws tearing through their carapaces as if they were made of rice paper. Ajuga could see the odd flash of green light in the distance as Diaemus kept the two beetles busy. In fact, it looked like one was even down for the count. She would never admit it, but she was impressed.

A cry of pain from Hana pulled Ajuga’s attention back to the General. Hana lay crumpled at the base of a tree, blood running from several cuts and breathing heavily as she struggled to rise. Ajuga swore as she raced to intercept him, leaping onto the General’s back and digging her claws in deep. She bit down on what she hoped was the back of his neck, but her fangs weren’t quite long enough to puncture the General’s armour.

“Foul beast!” he cried, reaching up and grabbing her by the scruff of her neck. He yanked her, head over heels, off of his back. Doing so opened up several long rents in his carapace, but it didn’t appear as if he cared all that much. Ajuga’s world went sideways as he threw her with all of his might.

Ajuga let out an ‘UUGH!’ as she collided with the trunk of the tree, a few feet above the spot where Hana fell, the distance far too short and the momentum too strong to try and twist to lessen the impact. For a terrible second all she could see were bright lights as the impact knocked the wind out of her. She landed in a heap on top of Hana and her friend let out a scream, the extra weight exacerbating whatever injuries the other girl already had.

They’d made a mistake this time, Ajuga suddenly understood as she tried to fill her lungs with some needed air, wheezing and coughing. This General was different from the ones they had fought in the Defense Net Tower. Not only did it speak their language, but it was also much faster and stronger than the others they had faced. He even looked different. His armour was tougher, thicker and he was taller and broader than the three they had taken out.

It was also far too disdainful for Ajuga’s liking. She pulled herself off of Hana and the two girls staggered to their feet. They both needed a moment to catch their breaths, and nothing worked better for getting a breather during a battle than engaging in pointless, idle banter. It was a time honoured delay tactic. Who knew, maybe she could even get him to monologue their evil plans, that would really give them time to breathe and plan.

“I guess I forgot my manners,” Ajuga spat, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She forced herself to stand up straight even though several muscles in her back hurt, refusing to be cowed by the likes of him. “I am Ajuga Jaegerjaquez,” she introduced herself.

“Kyoraku Hana,” Hana added. The girl’s voice was tinged with pain and she had to lean against the trunk of the tree for support, favouring her left side and holding her arm against her chest, as if something had happened to her shoulder.

She swore she saw the thing’s eyes blink and he froze for a moment. Then the General looked at her intently, almost curiously and Ajuga suddenly didn’t want to be there. Idle Banter suddenly seemed like a bad idea.

“Jaegerjaquez? As in Karin Jaegerjaquez?”

Beside her, Hana let out a surprised gasp.

“She’s my mother,” Ajuga growled and readied herself for another round with the bug.

“Ajuga, NO!” Hana shouted, leaping at her to try and cover her mouth, but it was far too late. The General moved and, tangled up with Hana, Ajuga couldn’t hope to dodge him.

Hana yelped as the creature materialized next to them, fisted the front of Hana’s uniform and flung the Shinigami into the underbrush. To her horror, Ajuga saw Hana’s head strike the side of a fallen log out of the corner of her eye. Then, before Ajuga had a chance to move, the General had that same hand around her neck and the other beneath one arm, lifting her and slamming her against the tree trunk he’d lobbed her at a few minutes earlier.

“Hana!” Ajuga managed to choke out.

Hana didn’t stir from where she had landed, but Ajuga could still hear her breathing, even if it was faint and seemed strained. Then the hand beneath her chin shook her and forced her to look at her captor.

“Answer me creature. Is Karin Jaegerjaquez, formerly Kurosaki Karin, your mother? Can those wretched Hollows actually breed?” he demanded, jarring her again.

“No shit dumb ass, you think Diaemus and I just ‘poofed’ into existence? And how the hell do you know my mother?” she snarled, lashing out with the claws on her feet.

They raked across the chitinous covering of his legs and his chest and he roared as he jumped back, ichor running from the five slash marks going across his body. Ajuga stumbled a bit as he dropped her. She regained her feet, shocked at how powerful this creature actually was. It was like he was the Swarm’s version of the Espada, while the locusts were merely the equivalent of newly-made Hollows or newly graduated Shinigami. The difference in strength was astonishing.

She barely had time to find her balance before she had to block an attack. Her Heirro absorbed most of the damage, but the force behind it sent her right back against the tree trunk. This time Ajuga’s body pivoted to the side. Unfortunately, her torso hit it wrong, and a sharp pain raced through her left arm accompanied by the sound of a sickening crunch.

Ajuga screamed as her limb broke. She hit the ground, her teeth slamming together and she fought to clear her eyes of the tears caused by an insane level of pain. She had been hurt before during training, but _never_ this badly. Her vision abruptly went green as an explosion rocked the ground nearby.

The General let out a string of hisses and buzzes that some detached part of Ajuga’s brain guessed would translate into curses. Then he turned his attention towards the winged boy.

“Diaemus,” Ajuga groaned, recognizing the attack as being one of his green lances, an ability he’d supposedly inherited from his father. For now, unfortunately, Diaemus’s lances didn’t quite match his father’s for power.

Ajuga crawled over to Hana, mindful of her broken arm while the sound of Diaemus clashing with the General echoed loudly in her ears. She reached Hana’s side, relieved to see she was just unconscious and surprisingly, in better physical shape than Ajuga. The sound of something big crashing through the trees made turn her pain-glazed eyes back towards the fray, hoping it wasn’t what she thought it was.

Diaemus sported several cuts, but so far it appeared that his speed allowed him to keep up with the General, matching blow for blow. Unfortunately, one of the beetles had returned and as things stood now, she and Hana were sitting ducks with clipped wings and broken feet. In her case, it was a broken arm.

The beetle paid no attention to them though and instead, turned towards Diaemus. The youth was so engrossed in fighting the General that he didn’t notice the hulking insect behind him rearing back in a familiar pose, one that always accompanied a spray of acid.

“DIAEMUS!” Ajuga screamed out the warning, hoping he could hear it.

It was just in time. Diaemus dove out of the way of the main acid arc. However, the end of it caught the clawed tip of his left wing. Ajuga had to give him credit for not crying out in pain as the acid began to eat at the edge of his wing. To her shock, Diaemus charged a small cero and aimed it at himself, using it to burn the acid-eaten portion of his wing off before it could destroy the whole thing. His action cauterized the wound and probably save his life, but at a terrible cost.

Now he shrieked and with only one working wing, he plummeted. Since he could fly, Diaemus had never bothered learning to walk in the air, an oversight he was probably berating himself for, if Ajuga was any judge. The General took the opportunity to intercept him. The Swarm’s leader collided solidly with Diaemus’s back, breaking the hybrid’s fall. The two crashed a mere twenty feet away from where Ajuga crouched next to Hana. The General wasted no time and Ajuga watched him reach down with both hands and smash several of the bones in Diaemus’ wings. The girl heard Diaemus’s anguished screams as the creature rendered his wings useless with a series of sickening crunches.

To hell with handing over a live General, Ajuga seethed inwardly. She would tear this one _apart_. She forced herself to her feet, fury radiating off of her as she tried to reach her friend before the General killed him. The General turned to face her and easily caught the punch she had thrown at him with her good arm.

“You bastard!!” she screeched and raked his lower leg with the sharp claws on her foot.

The General’s answer was to backhand her, hard, striking her across the mouth not once, but twice. Ajuga tasted blood and her head spun with the power beneath the blows. With her fist caught in his hand, he suddenly pulled her forward and she felt a sharp pain in the back of her neck, before he dropped her to lie on top of a gasping, moaning Diaemus. The General had probably meant to knock her unconscious, and her world did blur with all three strikes to her head. Her ability to see was shot, but she managed to hold onto consciousness by the tips of her claws.

The ground vibrated beneath her, the trembling getting stronger as the seconds flew by. Then she heard the ground give way and someone or something picked her up. The air grew colder and the smell of freshly turned earth and rock filled her nostrils. Judging by the strength of the scent, she’d been dragged underground. It would be impossible for anyone to follow her scent now, she realized with alarm.

The Swarm was taking her, just as they’d tried to make off with her mother and she had no idea why. How did they know her mother? What about Hana? Was she alright? Were they going to kill her friend? What about Diaemus? His wings had been horribly broken. And who was that General? He had spoken their language perfectly and had been far more powerful than any member of the Swarm she had ever encountered.

The sound of frantic chittering and clacking surrounded her and when she opened her eyes, she knew that the darkness around her was because she’d been pulled into one of the Swarm’s tunnels, not because there was anything wrong with her eyes. She tried to move, to will her limbs to obey her, to try to escape. Someone moved in next to her, on the side of her body with the broken arm.

Then she felt it, a short, sharp sting to the side of her neck and a brief, burning sensation after it. A moment later, the sound of the Swarm, the ground and the pain in her jaw and her arm faded and she drifted helplessly off into the surrounding blackness.

Her skull felt as if someone had kicked it, but Hana wasn’t as worried about that as she was about what she’d just witnessed.

She got her body into a crouch, then crawled to the nearest tree and used it to brace herself as she scrambled upright using her hands and one useable foot. Hana was dizzy from striking her head when the General had cast her aside like so much refuse. Out of habit, the analytical part of her brain worked to stuff down the rising panic she could feel growing in her chest long enough to take an inventory of her injuries. She was, for the most part, intact but her head hurt, her body ached, her shoulder was one big bruise and dizziness and nausea warred with one another as to which one would get control of her gut. That told her she most likely had a concussion; the General hasn’t been particularly gentle when he’d bounced her off of the log. Her first tentative step forward indicated her ankle was sprained. When she put her full weight on it she collapsed with a small sob.

It would be hours before the next person, either Shinigami or Arrancar, would think to come looking for her. They might not even realize what happened until the next shift and she was in no shape to go anywhere quickly.

_We screwed up. Kami, we screwed up and grossly underestimated him. He took us apart as if we were an annoyance, like swatting flies. The only one of us who managed to hurt him was Ajuga and she didn_ _’_ _t even slow him down!_

Once she was satisfied that none of her injuries were life-threatening, her logical half stepped aside and finally let fear have its way with her. It clutched at her heart as she recalled, through pain-slitted eyes, the Swarm making off with both Ajuga _and_ Diaemus. She’d come around just as the General dropped one of her friends on top of the other. A minute later, the earth shook then erupted in a spray of soil and rock. Several pill bugs emerged from the ground, standing before the General as if receiving instructions. The Swarm’s tall leader placed Ajuga and Diaemus’s limp forms, Diaemus’s wings bent at painful-looking, unnatural angles, upon their backs before they dove below the surface and were gone. The General went with them and the lone beetle lumbered off.

None of them had thought to see about dealing with Hana. The General hadn’t even given her a second glance. Maybe they’d assumed she was dead. Hana, with growing dread, guessed that the General had much more important things on his mind than worrying about one small, half-conscious Shinigami in the undergrowth.

How had they gotten past Szayel’s depth sounders? The sensors should have detected tunnelling.

 _Unless the tunnels were already there,_ she realized hazily and groaned.

She had to report this, had to get help before the Swarm could get too far away. The Swarm had been actively looking for Karin and it was just their luck to run across a General that not only knew their language, but now knew, thanks to Ajuga’s inability to keep her damned mouth shut, that she was Karin’s daughter.

 _It isn_ _’_ _t a matter of_ _‘_ _if_ _’_ _they toss her on the Throne, it_ _’_ _s a matter of_ _‘_ _when_ ,’ Hana thought and called herself all kinds of names for thinking that taking on the small patrol would be a good idea. She’d assumed the General would be unable to speak their language and even if they had dragged him, alive, to Szayel, without the ability to translate clicks and murmurs, Karin and Ajuga’s secret would have been safe.

Now everything she and Diaemus had done to try to cover up the truth about their friend lay in ruins and unless they could get Ajuga and Diaemus back, Aizen would find out about the Royal Blood that flowed through Karin and Ajuga’s veins.

Once Aizen learned the truth... Kami, she _couldn_ _’_ _t_ let that happen.

Hana gritted her teeth and tried to hobble back to the city. At some point, she found a forked branch long enough to use as a makeshift crutch, but it didn’t speed up her progress by much. Worse, it was getting dark, making it difficult to navigate. In fact, she swore she was going in circles and for the first time ever, she regretted the fact that she wasn’t Claimed. At least, if she’d been Claimed, her ‘owner’ would have known something was up and would have come to her rescue by now, drawn to her by both pain and panic.

Her strength waned as the sun vanished and the moon rose to the east. She had no idea how long she had been limping and she’d reached the point where the adrenaline from the fight had worn off, making it harder to ignore her injuries. By the time the moon had climbed to its zenith, it had been hours since the Swarm absconded with her friends and Hana was truly starting to think she was lost. It was much harder to find one’s way home on the ground in a dark forest with one eye swollen shut and the other furiously blinking back tears of pain and frustration.

She wanted to move faster, she knew she had to get help, but her ankle made it difficult. Each step she took caused it to throb and sent a jolt of agony up her spine. Hana considered that she might have made an error in thinking she’d sprained it during the fight. Instead, she now feared she’d broken it. In any case, the joint wouldn’t allow her to put any more weight on it and when she did try to use it, it gave way beneath her.

A chill breeze whistled past, stirring the leaves of the forest around her as well as her hair and her clothing and Hana became aware of something cold and wet on her cheeks. To her shame, she grasped that at some point during her long trek back, she’d started crying.

Hana was so wrapped up in her misery, her physical pain and her fear for Ajuga and Diaemus that she almost didn’t hear the sharp female voice that called out to her.

“Hana! What the hell happened?”

That was it. Hana’s strength was gone and she felt herself falling forward. However, her body never hit the ground. Someone with warm, deceptively strong arms and a pair of shocked, mismatched blue and brown eyes caught her and quickly picked her up ‘bridal-style’, hoisting her as if she weighed nothing. The breeze became a wind as it rushed around her. The ‘static’ vibration of Sonido buzzed in her ears along with the sound of a woman’s voice peppering Hana with hurried questions. The exhausted girl couldn’t quite make out the words. Despite her rescuer’s worried tone, Hana could tell the other was making a valiant attempt at reassuring her as they sped towards some kind of help.

 _Huh. I never knew Apache was such a caring person,_ the young Shinigami reflected shortly before she finally lost her fight to stay awake.


	40. Despair: The Domino Starts to Fall

It might be easier to concentrate on finding a way of getting their child back if he didn’t have to feel wave after wave of terror and heartache hitting him in the gut.

_This is getting us nowhere and I_ _’_ _m on the verge of a migraine_ _…_

From the second they’d received the news about Ajuga’s abduction, Karin had bombarded him with grief, pain, and outright panic. Grimmjow had never felt anything quite like it from her before, and that included the time she had chosen him over her brother nearly a decade ago. While knowing that the Swarm had taken their daughter was devastating, he wasn’t quite so sure that the event warranted quite _this_ much drama on her part. While he was just as pissed and worried as she, the tempestuous emotions coming off of Karin were so strong that he swore his mate was in the middle of some kind of mental melt-down. To make matters worse, Karin wasn’t the only one panicking.

Szayel frantically typed away on his computer’s many keyboards, desperately trying to find any trace of a signal from Ajuga’s bracelet. From all of the lip-biting and the frowning, he wasn’t having much luck. It wasn’t as if the bracelet had come off. They would have recovered it when they’d scoured the site where the children’s confrontation with the General occurred. Instead, it seemed as if the Swarm had carried the bracelet, along with Ajuga, out of range of Szayel’s sensors or destroyed it. Only beetle acid would have been able to dissolve the thing and since Hana’s report stated that she’d seen the two taken into an underground tunnel, the more likely scenario involved long distances and equipment with a limited range.

Grimmjow, given his nature, also approached the situation as a trained hunter. Why capture something one planned on killing? Transporting a dead body was much easier than taking live prey and transporting it. Hana’s story told him whatever the Swarm wanted with them probably didn’t involve killing either of the children. That meant that they were looking at one of two possibilities: the small patrol force was now very far away or, worse, the Swarm had taken them to their home world via one of the portals.

He didn’t like pondering the second. As of right now, they had no way of getting there and no knowledge of how to do so. The bug in Szayel’s basement was next to useless without another bug and Grimmjow wasn’t of the opinion that getting a second specimen would help him bring the kids back.

Aizen, the bastard, hadn’t appeared very concerned over the loss of the two children. Of course, he was curious to know why the Swarm had seen fit to take them. Hana had told Aizen that the General they had fought seemed interested in the fact that Hollows could breed. ‘Kami’ had accepted the answer and dismissed the lot of them. Only after they had left Aizen’s chambers and the Palace grounds did Hana grudgingly admit to the assembled adults the real reason the Swarm had taken Ajuga. The General had learned that Ajuga was Karin’s child when she had introduced herself, as was the custom when two intelligent opponents fought. If anything, his mate’s face had gone as white as the Hueco Mundo sands when she heard that. Toshiro and Harribel had identical confused expressions, unsure why something like that would matter, and Ulquiorra had been too busy trying to calm down the ‘princess’ to react much to it.

Once Hana had passed on what she knew, her mistress and her Taichou had hustled her off to the 4th Division for some badly-needed patching. He had to give it to Nanao’s brat: she’d been in rough shape when Harribel’s fraccion had discovered her and she’d still managed to make it back to a point close enough to the city for another patrol to find her. She’d also managed to make a coherent report with a head injury. On the other hand, he didn’t think she’d be too happy when her mother found out that the three of them had tried to take on a superior force without backup. As much as he hated to admit it, his daughter and her friends had chosen a target too strong for them to handle on their own this time.

Aizen had ever so graciously permitted Szayel to put his own research on hold for twenty-four hours to give them time to try to locate the kids, but that was it. In Kami`s own words, ‘the loss of two warriors does not warrant diverting precious resources from their current allocation,’ regardless of the fact that the missing ‘warriors’ were his Espada’s cubs. Grimmjow suspected Aizen had only given them _that_ grace period because he knew they were furious with him over the recent mistreatment of Karin`s pet. Grimmjow found the gesture somewhat lacking as far as apologies went.

“Damn it!” Szayel cursed, slamming his fists down on the keyboard, making the screen let out a noise of protest. “I’ve tried every long-range sensor we have in place, every system we set up and I can’t locate a signal. I’ve got nothing!”

The frustrated scientist slumped in his chair, hand on his forehead and his posture radiating defeat. They had been at it for the last fifteen hours. Grimmjow had tried to get Karin to try to sleep or to eat something, to no avail. Barring that, he tried to get her to explain why there was so much guilt coming at him from their Claim and why she kept mumbling about how the whole thing being her fault. His mate seemed imprisoned in a cage of self-inflicted remorse, self-loathing and despair and he was at a loss as to how to break her out of it. Between the aggravation and the negative emotions, he could feel a headache the size of Los Noches coming on. Just this once, he almost wished that he and Karin had a controlling Claim instead so he could order her to get hold of herself.

Szayel glanced sadly their way, anxiety, fear and regret smeared across his features. Grimmjow let out a slew of violent curses as his mind connected the dots between ‘mistress’ and ‘pet.’ Prying Karin off of him, he stomped over to Szayel and slapped him hard across the face.

Szayel yelped in surprise and shook his head, looking up at Grimmjow in a mixture of gratitude and annoyance while he rubbed his cheek. Turning about, and praying this wouldn’t end with him sleeping on the porch for the rest of his life, the Sixth Espada gave Karin the same treatment, although he kept the ‘blow’ on the light side, as she lacked Szayel’s Hierro.

“You, stop feeding her your panic!” he snapped at Szayel, “And you, calm down and act like the tough-ass bitch I know I mated.” Grimmjow added a growl for good measure.

Szayel visibly closed his eyes and took several deep breaths while Karin did the same, slipping into Jinzen. Some days he really cursed the Claim Karin had on Szayel, especially during the times they both went to pieces and Szayel’s emotions fed hers. It served no purpose other than to drive pins into Grimmjow’s head.

Finally, both of them managed to let go of enough of their mutual agitation to take the backwash Grimmjow suffered down to a dull roar. It wasn’t as if Grimmjow didn’t understand why they were so damned upset. If the Swarm put Ajuga on the Throne, the figurative and literal cat would be out of the bag. Now that the Swarm had Ajuga as a captive, there was a good chance that whoever was in charge of the insects would attempt to do just that.

“All of this is my fault,” Karin whispered yet again and her mate decided to put a stop to the pity-party before it started again.

“How, exactly, is this _your_ fault?” Grimmjow growled, looking her in the eye. He hoped his tone made it clear to her he wasn’t going to stand for anything less than full disclosure.

Haltingly, Karin told Grimmjow and Szayel about the meeting with General ‘Zee,’ how she had asked Mushi to get him to meet in secret with her and how she had insisted on the Swarm getting her family name right. If she hadn’t done any of that, the kids wouldn’t have come across Zee and his squad and Ajuga’s family name would have meant nothing. Grimmjow felt the headache creep a little closer to fully manifesting. The guilt and the self-loathing made sense now. Surprisingly, he felt a bit of pleasure about how she had insisted the Swarm use his moniker over ‘Kurosaki.’ Then he told his ego to get lost. He had bigger things to deal with.

“At least you learned their range is farther than we could have possibly imagined. You also managed to broker us a few more days between Swarm attacks,” Szayel reminded her. He appeared to be scrounging around for something to make Karin feel better. Privately, Grimmjow thought the pink freak needed to scrounge a little harder, as Karin wiped at her reddened eyes.

“That’s assuming they honour it now that they have Ajuga,” Karin countered brokenly.

“They might. Ajuga is still a Hollow, and the Swarm has made it clear that they despise us. If I were to hazard a guess, I would say that they would hold her as collateral to make sure _you_ go through with your offer of accepting the Throne. I think that they’ll only put her on the Throne as a last resort,” Szayel said as calmly as he could.

Karin seemed to think about it for a moment before deflating. The worry was still there but the panic was gone. Nor was she caught up in a downward spiral of sorrow and penitence and self-hatred. Briefly, Grimmjow wondered how Ulquiorra was doing, considering Orihime was a much bigger mental case than Karin upon finding out about Diaemus and if Karin was this bad, self-blame aside, Orihime had to be a serious mess about now.

He was worried for Ajuga as well of course, but he knew his daughter was strong, that she could take care of herself, even with a broken arm, as Hana had reported. He doubted the Swarm would harm his daughter, not after everything he had learned. No, the real danger to his family would be if the Swarm grew impatient and put Ajuga on the Throne, revealing their secret to Aizen. No one had any illusions about what Aizen would do the moment he learned of Karin’s heritage, let alone to the others who had helped to keep her secret, unless if they somehow managed to convince him they were in the dark about it.

Covering for Szayel would be a waste of time. Aizen was well aware that Szayel had samples of Karin’s blood, taken long before Szayel’s mask cracked, forcing Grimmjow to pretend to have Claimed him. There was no excuse anyone could come up with that would satisfy Aizen, and even if they did, Aizen wouldn’t care. The motherfucker would use the incident as an excuse to cage the pet he’d been chasing for decades, permanently. Szayel would spend the rest of his life under Aizen at Kami’s leisure and no one could truly protest the result. Traitors had no rights. He also didn’t want to think about what Aizen would do to Szayel’s mate, his children or their guardian.

Grimmjow supposed it was a testament to how much he had changed over the years when he realized those thoughts infuriated him. There’d been a time when he’d failed to give a fuck about anyone, not even his own pack. Then Kurosaki had entered his life, and through the human boy, he had met Karin, the woman who had slowly transformed him. She’d done so completely and he’d never felt it happening, until this moment, when the idea of Szayel and his family suffering in Aizen’s ‘playroom’ made him want to empty his stomach into the nearest wastebasket. Szayel had gone through hell and still kept his mouth shut about information that would have bought him his freedom from Aizen’s molestations. Even when the Seventh had been tortured and raped, his first concern had been for Ajuga.

Grimmjow hated debts, and he would be damned if he would owe any to Szayel Apporo Grantz. He just wasn’t sure how he would go about paying what Szayel had already tallied on his daughter’s behalf.

Fortunately, Szayel’s expression changed and Grimmjow got the feeling the other Espada was about to let him know how he might fix this little imbalance.

“Before we talk about anything else, we should make sure we will not be overheard. This way,” Szayel ordered, clearing his throat and running a hand through his hair. Grimmjow helped Karin to her feet and they followed the other Espada from the room.

The scientist led them down several flights of stairs and down a long series of hallways to an unfamiliar ‘room’ that looked more like a cavern with a tile floor. His mate seemed to recognize it and acted as if she knew why Szayel had chosen this particular place for a discussion. Szayel carefully secured the room before they made themselves as comfortable as they could with the limited furnishings. The only furniture appeared to be, for some reason, a metal-framed bed with a bare mattress and pillow and a few less-than-comfortable chairs near the room’s security system console. Since Karin and Szayel seemed reluctant to use the bed for sitting purposes, Grimmjow dragged both chairs over to the larger piece of furniture and parked himself on the mattress, ignoring the inexplicably disturbed looks on their faces.

“Now then, Karin-sama, what is your plan for killing Aizen?” Szayel asked seriously.

Grimmjow felt a flutter in his chest as the other Espada gave voice to his own unspoken desires. He’d dreamed of killing Aizen for a long time, and now Szayel had finally grown the balls to address the situation everyone else seemed too whipped to bring up. The fact that Szayel was looking at his mate while he asked the question made Grimmjow stare at her as well.

When he sensed the turmoil in her fade to a mixture of determination and acceptance, he felt nothing but pride. _There_ was the woman he’d mated and it was about damned time she showed up.

“This is what I have worked out, but everything is so…” she paused, clearly trying to think of the word she wanted and not having much luck.

“Just start from the beginning,” Grimmjow prodded, wanting to hear what she’d come up with so far.

Karin gave them the bare bones of the idea for a rebellion that had heretofore only existed in her imagination. For their part, they listened in silence and Grimmjow couldn’t help the surge of anticipation and adrenaline that coursed through him. Just the idea of sinking his claws into Aizen, of getting the opportunity to deliver some payback gave him goose bumps, even if his mate’s plan called for sharing the battle with others, including Kurosaki if they could pull everything together.

Szayel seemed more sceptical, but then, his job description involved analysis and risk assessment. When Karin finished, he adjusted his mask fragment and sighed.

“It’s going to be tricky to coordinate, and we all know that the more complicated a plan, the more likely it is that at least one part of it will break down. But,” he paused and nibbled on his lip for a moment, clearly deep in thought, “I think it might work. Assuming you don’t see Yoruichi first, we can get Abarai to pass on the message to Nel…”

“Wait, wait… you mean your ‘pet’ is in contact with…” Grimmjow began, holding up his hands to interrupt the scientist, and stopped when he noticed the mood had changed considerably.

Szayel gave Karin a strange look complete with one raised eyebrow and Karin’s hand shot up to rub her forehead while she grimaced. The strange mixture of incredulity, irritation, and embarrassment he received from the two of them made no sense whatsoever. At least, he thought it didn’t until Karin gave him another guilty look that had nothing to do with Ajuga.

“Uhm… about that… Abarai… well, Renji really isn’t Szayel’s ‘pet,’” Karin replied and looked at Szayel for some assistance. The pink-haired Espada glared at her in return.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell him about this! Unbelievable!”

If anything, his mate looked even more chagrined than she had a moment ago.

“I meant to, I did, but things kept coming up! That and I thought it would be better if fewer people knew.”

“Oh, for the love of…” Szayel threw his hands up in the air in total exasperation, Grimmjow leaned forward and let out a menacing growl, getting their collective attention.

“Red’s got a Claim on him brighter than fireworks at noon and the guy can’t lie for shit. If you,” he pointed at Szayel “didn’t Claim him, who did?”

Karin and Szayel gave each other a nervous glance, looking much the same way Ajuga and Hana had as children when they’d been caught bending the truth to get out of a punishment.

“Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck…” Szayel answered, cringing a bit. “She holds his Claim.”

All of a sudden, Grimmjow wished he had a case of sake and a bottle of aspirin handy, because the headache he’d been trying to keep at bay was back.

“I’d like an explanation, before we go any farther with this. Just so we’re all on the same fucking page, alright?” he demanded through gritted teeth.

Fifteen minutes later, Grimmjow found himself at a kind of crossroads. He could choose to be pissed that his mate hadn’t shared something as important as consorting with the Escapees from him. He could also choose between anger, that Szayel hadn’t seen fit to inform him of the fact that one of his ‘pets’ was a loose cannon, and being tickled as shit that his mate and Szayel’s collective household had managed to keep the truth about Renji’s Claim hidden from _everyone_ , including the all-seeing Aizen, for over _five fucking years_! Then he gave it some more thought and when he remembered the morning following an all-night clash between himself and the redhead, he decided on the third option and gave in to riotous, half-hysterical laughter.

“Goddammit! _That_ _’_ _s_ what he meant! I thought he was talking about Harribel! I even ordered him to tell me the truth and he still managed to fool me!” The Sixth guffawed, cackling until his sides began to hurt and tears formed at the corners of his eyes. “Shit, that’s fucking hilarious! I take it back. Red’s a stone-cold sneaky bastard.”

“I’m glad you’re amused. I can assure you that the situation tests _my_ sense of humour every ten months,” Szayel retorted dryly. “Abarai remains ignorant of Karin’s bloodline, thankfully, though if you feel you can trust him with this information…”

“You trust him with your flesh and blood,” Grimmjow shot back, all traces of mirth gone. “That’s enough of an endorsement for me at this point. He put himself under one of Aizen’s whips to keep your son and daughter safe, with no connection at all to you. I’d say tell him. Damn, he had me going there about being in love with the Third! Didn’t think he meant Nelliel, though.”

Szayel got a queasy look on his face, turning a little green and Karin’s eyes grew a bit bigger. If anything, the revelation had taken her mind off of their daughter’s abduction for a few minutes and for that, Grimmjow was grateful.

“I had no idea. I mean, I knew she was powerful, from the strength of the Claim I saw around him, but… I had no idea she was once the _Third_. What happened? Why is Harribel the Third Espada, and not her?”

Grimmjow scratched his head, noticed that Szayel was suddenly and intently studying his shoes then shrugged and leaned back on the mattress, propping himself up with his arms.

“You know how Nnoitra is about females. He cracked her mask in a fight, like Szayel. She lost her adult form and her place in Aizen’s Army. She’d hooked up with your brother in Hueco Mundo and she’s been with him ever since. Someone fixed her mask and she was back to normal, last time I ran into her.”

Meanwhile, Szayel had his head in his hands, muttering something about Abarai in love being the equivalent of a tap-dancing walrus, in that the idea was deeply disturbing and might constitute a violation of natural laws. Grimmjow gave him a sardonic look and snorted derisively.

“Get over it, Szayel. As far as I’m concerned, Red can do her six ways to Sunday as long as he’s willing to do what we need him to do. From what I can see, we’re not gonna have a problem there.”

Szayel, obviously repulsed, made a face, while Karin actually blushed and looked away.

“Perhaps you wouldn’t be so unruffled about this if you realized what you were sitting on,” the other Espada sniffed distastefully. “If it’s one thing for which I’m grateful, it’s that both the Kido barrier Shihoin-san provided and this room’s shielding are mercifully soundproof.”

When understanding dawned, Grimmjow immediately took his hands off of the mattress, rubbing them on his uniform.

“Well, that explains the scent,” he grouched and leaned forward. “Look, as interesting as this is, we have an assassination to arrange and we’ve just lost the luxury of taking our time to put something together. I’d try Yoruichi first, Karin, since it will be months before the former Third drops by to see Red, right?”

Szayel nodded, clearly relieved at the change in topic and rubbed his hands together.

“I don’t think we can wait until late summer, Grimmjow. That being said, as much as there are times I’d like to drown him, I will admit that in the last few days, I’ve considered giving Abarai the means to escape this Realm with my children, if things go badly with Aizen. I have no Claim on him. Aizen could not use me to hunt him down,” he told them reluctantly, his golden eyes troubled and pain-filled. “I doubt Nemu would leave my side unless I forced her to go with him, but he could easily take Abisara and Vindula to safety.”

Both Grimmjow and Karin remained silent as he declared this and the Sixth frowned at the scientist.

“Sounds like you’ve given this some serious thought.”

“Better I send the twins away, in the care of someone I trust, than let my son end up in Aizen’s dungeon. I see that less as a potential problem than I do an inevitable one.”

Grimmjow was off the mattress in flash, staring down at the Seventh with an expression of horror plastered on his ashen face. “You can’t be serious! That fucker hasn’t…?”

Szayel, in turn, gave him the bleakest, most hopeless look he’d ever seen on anyone’s mug. It was the sort of thing one would see on the face of a condemned man forced to watch his executioner tie the noose by which he’d hang.

“He’s using my children against me, Grimmjow, to force me to do his bidding and my son _won_ _’_ _t_ be five years old forever. I will do _whatever_ it takes to get them out of harm’s way.”

A hand reached out and grabbed Grimmjow’s forearm. He looked down to see Karin staring back up at him. Reluctantly, the blue-eyed Espada sat back down and filled his lungs with air, letting it out slowly.

“Language, Grimmjow…” he heard his mate say quietly, with little hint of the usual wrathful tone that usually accompanied the warning. He could tell she was trying to rein in her emotions until they could get this done, so he waited until Szayel had pulled himself back together and resumed speaking.

“I have a device that will open an unregistered Garganta. No one will be able to track it and the team I sent to Hueco Mundo to retrieve it from my storage facility arrived back late last night. It’s in pieces in Lab 12. I intend to strip its working components down to only the necessary parts in the next day or two and make it portable and hopefully, concealable. I’d originally intended to give it to Abarai with instructions to get my son and daughter to the Living World and equip them all with reiatsu suppressors in the event Aizen decides to make me a full-time occupant of the Palace.”

Szayel clasped his hands together and squared his shoulders.

“However, if we’re going to do this, I believe it might be better to employ it as a means to get not only the children, but all of the other non-combatants we care about out of the Soul Society and to a secure location. Even if we pull Aizen out into the forest there is no guarantee he won’t come back to the city to try and use them as hostages against us.”

“So, you agree with this?” Karin asked nervously. “You’re both ready to take him out?”

“Fuck Aizen,” Grimmjow smirked, letting her know that he was fine with killing Aizen.

“I believe I’ve had quite enough of his… attentions,” Szayel added, shivering slightly. “As for the other Espada, you are right about Barragan. He’s been looking for a weakness he can use against Aizen for years. He wants his throne back. However, I’m not sure we wouldn’t be trading one problematic ruler for another in that regard. I’m not certain about Ulquiorra and Harribel. I know how Harribel feels about women and children and if she learned what Aizen planned for Abisara and how he threatened Vindula,” Szayel paused here, took several deep breaths and forced himself past the fear he felt for his twins lest it affect Karin, “then she may be more willing to help. At least, she might not hinder us and she’d keep her fraccion and herself out of our way. I think we can truly get her on our side if we let her know about Ajuga and Hana’s genetic inheritance and the threat Aizen poses to them. She has become very fond of the two girls and isn’t one to run about blabbing secrets, especially ones that would put her charges in danger.”

“I really don’t like so many people knowing, especially her loud-mouthed fraccion,” Karin said and nervously worried her lower lip with her teeth.

Grimmjow had to agree with her. While he trusted Harribel herself, Harribel’s fraccion were as discreet as a hornet’s nest shoved down a hakama. None of them knew when to keep their traps shut and it was Grimmjow’s opinion that without Harribel’s protection, they would have made one enemy too many while in Hueco Mundo.

Harribel was a different story. Just getting that woman to talk at times was a chore. Prying information out of her was next to impossible. If she had a weakness, it was her girls, and Ajuga and Hana fell under that category. He didn’t like the idea of others knowing about such a dangerous secret. It was a wonder the entire world didn’t know about it yet with that loud-mouthed, pig-tailed brat running around with Kurosaki. Now that the Swarm had Ajuga, the secret was on a very short timer anyway. Still, if it was anyone he felt he could trust with such knowledge, it was Harribel.

“I think we can tell her,” he said and then sighed. “Szayel is right, can’t believe I just said that.” He muttered the second part under his breath. “We can trust Harribel and learning about this just may endear her to our side when the lines are drawn.”

“And having her on our side effectively takes her pet out of the conflict. Toshiro is a powerful Shinigami, one I wouldn’t want to face. I’m not sure about Ulquiorra. His loyalty and obedience to Aizen are near absolute. Then there’s Starrk. Would he be willing to join us?” Szayel asked.

“Starrk is getting pissy too, or at least, Lilynette is, especially after Aizen tried to blind their pet. He wasn’t too happy when he learned what Aizen’s been doing to you either and I think he actually lost his temper when he found out that Aizen had been planning to harm Abisara, even if it was just to get in your pants. It’s kinda hard to tell with that guy. I get the impression that if you want to know what the First ‘feels,’ you have to talk to Lilynette.” Grimmjow answered. “I’ll ask Starrk and see what he thinks of the whole idea, but I’m willing to bet Lilynette will be all for it and she’ll goad him into acting.”

“I’ll speak with Harribel. Once I tell her about how Aizen threatened my children,” and here Szayel shivered again, “I am sure she will support us. Karin-sama, do I have your permission to tell her about your birthright?” Szayel looked at Karin, as the Claim-backed instructions she’d given him required her acquiescence for him to reveal the knowledge.

Grimmjow could feel her indecision, the need to keep her and her family safe warring with the need to enlist badly-needed help. If Harribel betrayed them, Karin would be under Aizen faster than any of them, even Starrk, could hope to prevent. Grimmjow knew Aizen would probably kill him as well, as there was no way in hell he would allow that to happen to his mate.

“Alright,” she finally relented. “You can tell the Third and _only_ the Third, about my bloodline. You are to make certain that no one can overhear you when you do and only if you are one-hundred-and-ten-percent positive that she won’t tell another soul, not even Toshiro.”

He saw Szayel wince a little as Karin placed an inordinate amount of pressure on the Claim to ensure he obeyed. The resulting discomfort _almost_ made Grimmjow feel sorry for Szayel. Almost. The power behind that command meant that Szayel would only broach the subject if Harribel was alone and sympathetic to their cause and the only people better at reading others than Szayel was were Starrk and Aizen.

“What about Nnoitra? Do you think he will fight against us or stand with us?” Karin asked hesitantly.

Grimmjow had to sit back and consider that. The Fifth, to him, was a wild card. While he wasn’t fond of the guy, it would be better to have him on their side than not. His memories of Santa Teresa weren’t positive, particularly the ones involving that little personal cluster-fuck that went down after he’d lost to Kurosaki. The idea of working with the Aspect of Despair gave him hives, but if he could put his distaste for Nnoitra aside, the jackass might actually be of use. Szayel, apparently, thought so too.

“Nnoitra won’t be an issue if the Swarm attacks when this goes down. He will be too busy swatting bugs to care that there’s an ambush going on behind him. His focus has always been on battle and proving himself. The Throne’s occupant won’t matter to him,” Szayel answered.

Karin made a face at that, but nodded in agreement. Then his mate got a faraway look in her eyes and her next words were sombre.

“As difficult as taking out Aizen will be, I’m worried more about the aftermath,” she confessed. “We’re going to have a lot of leaderless Arrancar with Claims on a significant portion of the population, the ones with better-than-average reiatsu. Yammy is going to be a big problem. He has Kuchiki-san and he’ll use him against us. The other problem would be the utter chaos as those Arrancar abandon the laws Aizen put in place. Some would scatter, taking their Claims with them while still others might go after more people now that Aizen is no longer around to rein them in.”

Of course, she would worry about that. He was concerned about that as well, but not as much as someone in her sandals might be. While he disagreed with how many of the Arrancar treated their pets, the point was that they had earned the right to them. He knew better than to bring that up with her of course, but he could at least assuage one of her worries.

“Yammy is a walking corpse. Ajuga has him in her line of sight and like hell I am letting my daughter go after him alone,” he promised her, a growl deep in his throat. “I might even get Red to help me. I don’t think he’d turn down the opportunity.”

“Karin-sama does have a point. Any Arrancar who side with Aizen will throw their pets at us as well, willing or not. Kuchiki Byakuya _would_ be a powerful foe. However, _if_ the Swarm upholds their end of the bargain, the bugs will keep most of the Arrancar and their pets busy. Assuming the Swarm can keep the rest of the army diverted, _we_ should have time to deal with Aizen. The Numeros will follow the Espadas’ orders, out of habit. After we kill Aizen, provided we can keep that knowledge hidden for a while. The Espada can summon each of them to the Palace on an individual basis and deal with them piecemeal afterwards.”

When Karin seemed about to protest, Szayel leaned forward and put his matter-of-fact face on, the one he used when ladling out unpleasant truths.

“Karin-sama, I know you want to see everyone freed, but do recall that most Arrancar see their pets as just that, _pets_ and toys that they have earned. We cannot order them to give up what they see as their rightful property. If we did, we would be embroiled in a conflict with our own insurrection within a matter of days, if not hours. I would remind you that not all ‘pets’ might want to be freed. Your friend Tatsuki comes to mind.”

“Neither Tatsuki, nor Tesra consider her a ‘pet’. She’s his _mate_ , just like Grimmjow is mine,” she replied a little testily. Grimmjow’s eyebrow went up another notch, and he would have said something but Szayel beat him to it.

“I hate to point this out, but their sentiments for one another aside, Tatsuki _cannot_ reciprocate a Mating Claim. Ergo, by Arrancar law, she is technically his property. You are the only one Claimed after the War’s end with the ability to cast a Claim of your own. _You_ might prove to be the exception as far as our laws, but none of the others qualifies. I also fear that arrangements such as the one Tatsuki and Tesra share constitute a minority of the existing Claims.”

“Karin, Szayel’s right on this one. Let’s worry about ridding ourselves of Aizen for now and we’ll deal with that issue later.”

He felt her apprehension at the idea, but after a few moments, she nodded solemnly. Grimmjow was actually happy Szayel had opened up that particular can of worms and not him. He knew Nnoitra wouldn’t give up his pet and, even if they got Barragan on their side, he doubted they would convince the self-proclaimed king of Hueco Mundo to give up Yumichika, let alone Ggio. The majority of pets would be stuck in their current roles. It would be up to the Espada to force some kind of order on the inevitable turmoil afterwards. If the Escapees took the considerable power _they_ had at their disposal, as well as that of a newly-freed Unohana-Taichou and Ichimaru Gin, and used it as a counterbalance to the Espada’s authority, they could get the lower ranks to fall in line.

“Look, we lure Aizen out of his spider hole, get him out in the woods and then the Swarm and those willing to join us in lopping off his head will ambush him while the rest of the Swarm keeps our forces busy. We get the kids and anyone Aizen might use as a hostage out beforehand, get Kurosaki and his buddies to help out and we’re in business,” he summarized.

“So, we have a rough plan then?” Karin asked, lacing and unlacing her fingers together, her gray eyes fixed on them both.

“I believe that covers it for now,” Szayel indicated. Grimmjow gave his mate a grin. She reciprocated, though her smile was a bit on the wan side.

However, her mood had improved with the discussion, if the emotions he felt through their bond were any indication and for that, he was grateful. She was relieved and he briefly wondered how long she had been stewing over this. Grimmjow felt better as well, now that they had a plan of attack. It was about damned time that the Espada got off their asses and did something about the motherfucker who had the nerve to impose his will on Hueco Mundo’s elite without following his own rules and if things went the way they ought to, they had a good shot at pulling off the assassination of the millennium.

Grimmjow also acknowledged that there would be a few side benefits to putting Aizen down like a rabid dog. One of them involved squaring off with Kurosaki, especially after the hybrid learned that he had mated with Karin. The Sixth had to keep from rubbing his hands together in gleeful anticipation of the moment he laid eyes on the guy and saw his face when he told the orange-haired kid.

“Of course, we still need to decide on one last thing: which of us will make the attempt to talk to Ulquiorra, because I _truly_ do not want to have to fight him if the Fourth disagrees with our blueprint for the future,” Szayel hesitantly inquired. Grimmjow rolled his eyes.

_How did Szayel ever manage to weasel his way into an Espada_ _’_ _s seat, with that kind of timid attitude?_

“I’ll talk to him,” Grimmjow volunteered before his brain registered the fact his lips were moving. Once the words were out of his mouth, he realized he’d just offered to risk Murcielago taking his head off for treason and slapped his forehead.

_Probably by asking others to do the difficult work for him._

He was unaccustomed to feeling loss, yet right now, loss pulled at him, and not all of it came from Orihime. Long ago, he’d had nothing he cared for that he could recall. Then he met Orihime and over time, she showed him what it meant to have real ties to another being. Not long after, from a Hollow’s perspective, she graced him with a son. Before that, he was sure he had a grasp of ‘love’ as a theoretical concept, an intellectual appreciation of the state. However, when he had seen her holding their child, he understood that his previous awareness of the emotion had been only academic. The ‘love’ he’d experienced from that moment on was visceral, enough to light him from within with its presence alone. It was a living thing and the longer it dwelled inside of him, the more ‘alive’ he became as its host.

Now that child was gone, taken from him and nothing he’d ever experienced in his existence to date measured up to this loss for sheer agony. He’d experienced loneliness, hunger, despair… but never loss. That didn’t surprise him. Feeling loss required that one have someone they cherished, something valuable to lose in the first place and there had been no one before Orihime. He put Aizen in the same category as all of the others who were not his mate and his child; while the loss of one of those might sting for a time, it was not the insurmountable feeling of deprivation caused by the lack of their presence. Now one of the two people he loved was gone and the remaining one was inconsolable.

Ulquiorra was woefully unprepared to deal with either of these things.

Orihime’s face was red from sobbing and he hadn’t been able to get her to eat anything since Aizen had delivered the news about their son’s abduction. He had managed to get her to take a few sips of water, but that was it. As a human, she needed more nourishment than that. The Fourth couldn’t help but to think back on the old days, when Aizen had thrust her upon him as an unwanted responsibility, when he had to threaten her to get her to eat. He had no desire to return to such tactics, but if she didn’t start seeing to her physical needs…

“Orihime, you must eat,” he ordered, offering her a spoonful of miso soup from the bowl in his hand.

She didn’t even acknowledge him. Instead, she continued to sob, to rock back and forth and bombard him with deep despair. It reminded Ulquiorra of the ‘emotion’ that had been his only companion during the days he’d lived in the white-bone forests of Hueco Mundo, before Aizen had found him and offered him a purpose. Wincing inwardly, he made a conscious effort to discard that comparison as soon as it came to him, for she had been right yesterday. Aizen was not the man he once was. His leader’s ‘offer’ of a day to try to track down his child and no more than that had engendered another emotion that he hadn’t felt in a great while, not since the day he’d taken on Kurosaki Ichigo and won.

He found it strange that the desire to ravage something, to destroy it down to its very spirit particles kept such good company with the loss eating away at him. It also did little to help him figure out how to deal with his distraught mate.

Nothing he did seemed to get through to her and Ulquiorra was at his wit’s end. She needed to eat. If she didn’t do so soon, he would face a choice: force her to eat using the Claim, or to take her to the 4th Division and have Unohana-Taichou deal with her. Neither appealed to him. He found himself reluctant to do the first as he felt it would be a betrayal of her trust, even if he had vowed to only use the Claim for such purposes if absolutely necessary. The second was tempting. Unohana-Taichou had a way of getting through to even the most truculent of patients, even if it involved placing an IV into his mate’s arm to deliver needed nutrients and fluids. If Kami’s wife told a person to eat, there was no fuss, no protests. The 4th Division was packed full of patients, however and he had no idea if Unohana would have time to deal with such a problem when there were greater injuries that required her care.

Ulquiorra refused to lose the only other person who had ever meant anything to him over something as petty as self-neglect, not after losing his son. The bitterness of that seemed to seep under his tongue, into his lungs and his joints, until every part of the Fourth Espada ached. He had no illusions when it came to the search the Seventh and Grimmjow’s mate tried to conduct, not when all of Szayel’s scientific resources failed to find the Swarm’s breeding grounds after ten years of hunting.

A knock on the front door drew his attention and Orihime jumped, momentarily startled out of her near-catatonic condition. He didn’t need to answer it to know that it was her human friend Tatsuki and her mate. Rising, he set the bowl of untouched soup down and moved to open the door while Orihime remained curled up in a ball of misery on the couch.

He’d had no luck drawing her out of her current state. If anyone could help get through to his mate, perhaps it would be Tatsuki.

He had no idea how Tatsuki had known something was up, but he suspected Harribel’s fraccion had played a part in that. Those girls had a tendency to spread gossip as far and as wide as they could. He’d learned at the meeting that one of them had run across Hana while the wounded girl was on her way back to the city. Hana had probably reported to Harribel and Toshiro first. Her fellow fraccion had most likely been listening in before her mistress and her Taichou had taken the young Shinigami to report what she knew directly to Aizen. News like this would travel fast and was, presumably, all over the city by now.

“Ulquiorra-san. May I come in?” Tatsuki asked respectfully from her spot on the porch.

He stepped to the side without uttering a word, opening the door wider in lieu of a spoken invitation. Tatsuki didn’t need any further prompting and rushed to Orihime’s side, moving swiftly despite her pregnancy. Tesra remained hovering outside uncertainly.

“I will see to it she is kept safe. Return to your charge,” the Fourth told the nervous father-to-be.

“Thank you, Ulquiorra-sama.”

Tesra bowed before disappearing to resume guarding Nnoitra’s pregnant pet.

Closing the door, he turned to see both women with their arms around one another on the couch, Tatsuki making small, soothing noises in an effort to comfort her friend. Within minutes of her arrival, Tatsuki managed to get Orihime to take sips of water from the glass he had been trying to entice her to drink from for several hours. He was pleased at that. On any other day, he might be jealous that some human woman had succeeded where he had failed, but all he felt was relief that Orihime was finally responding to outside stimuli and taking needed nourishment. With his mate in Tatsuki’s reliable hands, he finally had the time to deal with his own emotional needs.

He sought out Grimmjow’s reiatsu without questioning why he did so. He was surprised to discover the Espada heading his way, minus his mate. Throwing his ‘feelers’ out a little wider, it took him a moment to determine that Karin was still at the Science and Research building. She must have been helping Szayel try and find the cubs, a task for which Grimmjow was ill suited.

To Ulquiorra, it didn’t matter. The one he wanted to see was on his way.

Making sure he had Murcielago tucked securely into his belt, he nodded once to Tatsuki as he slipped out of the door. While he’d promised Tesra his mate would be fine in his care, Ulquiorra doubted anyone would be foolish enough to try anything while Tatsuki remained at his den. If Tatsuki had known that Orihime would be in such straits, the rest of the Arrancar would probably give both he and his territory a wide berth, not wanting to risk his wrath right now. The lone exception to that rule wasn’t far away and Ulquiorra moved to intercept him.

He met Grimmjow one block away. His fellow Espada looked like someone had kicked him in the tail, hard and repeatedly. Grimmjow was obviously having a difficult time with his daughter’s abduction and it made Ulquiorra feel slightly better to know that he wasn’t the only Arrancar adversely affected by the loss of his offspring.

“Grimmjow,” he hailed the other, his own voice sounding leaden.

“Yo. Want to work some of this frustration out?” Grimmjow asked, his voice lacking its usual enthusiasm. The other’s troubled expression mirrored Ulquiorra’s feelings, even if his countenance did not. “I feel like shredding something.”

“I think that would be prudent,” he agreed easily, having had the same thought himself. The Sixth nodded and turned on his heel, striking out in a familiar direction.

They wasted no time on further speech. Instead, the clearing they had created ages ago, their children’s training ground, became their battlefield again, only this time they began the session in their respective Resurreccións. Grimmjow went after him with all the rage and frustration of a devastated father and Ulquiorra was shocked to find that he had a hard time keeping up. To counter Grimmjow’s ferocious attacks, the Fourth made a decision and switched to his second, winged form. If Grimmjow was surprised to see it, he said nothing and continued his vicious strikes. In his secondary state, Ulquiorra gained an aerial advantage, but that didn’t stop the Sixth from doing everything in his power to bring his black-winged body to the ground. The Fourth considered his secondary release’s appearance, with its black wings, fur and tail, the embodiment of despair and Grimmjow seemed determined to tear it to shreds with those malevolent claws of his.

When had Grimmjow become so strong? Ulquiorra suspected that, with the kind of power he was using now, the Sixth could take out the Fifth Espada with ease if the two were to fight for the higher-ranking position. Perhaps it had something to do with having a family and something to defend… or maybe he had grown stronger with each battle, as the years of conflict with the Swarm stretched on. Maybe he was well and truly pissed. Whatever the reason, Ulquiorra found the development pleased him. Grimmjow’s increased strength meant Ulquiorra wouldn’t have to hold back while taking the other Espada on, allowing him to burn off the rage he harboured towards the Swarm, for the loss of his precious son.

By the time the fight petered out, the clearing was nothing more than a moonscape of pitted, scarred earth, the craters reaching down to bedrock in some places. The old tree stumps and fallen logs were long gone. They had reduced the new vegetation that had gamely tried to make a go of it in the warmth of an early spring to cinders, the scorched ground smoking in the wake of so many Ceros and Balas. If there had been any living creatures nearby when the fight had started, they’d long since fled or flown for their lives.

Ulquiorra guessed that it was high time they wrapped things up if the training area’s condition was any indication of the fight’s progress. Both of them were out of breath, in Grimmjow’s case, panting heavily and on the verge of exhaustion.

“Feeling any better?” Grimmjow asked once he’d managed to wrestle his breathing back under control. The Sixth sat on the remains of what was once a sizeable boulder, now just a blackened pile of granite chunks.

“Slightly,” he admitted, and dissolved both of his released states, sheathing Murcielago and trying very hard not to seem as if he was grateful for the reprieve from Grimmjow’s attempts to skewer him with one of Pantera’s forms.

“Yeah, I still feel like shit too” Grimmjow agreed, hanging his head and closing his eyes. After a moment, Ulquiorra joined him on the rock pile, sitting a few feet away and staring off into the distance. The stone beneath his fingers was still warm from absorbing the energy one too many Ceros. The Fourth wasn’t entirely sure which one of them had demolished it. Instead, Ulquiorra sat forward and folded his arms over his bent knees, then addressed the other. It seemed like the polite thing to do.

“This pain… it is not something I ever thought I would feel.”

The Sixth curled his lip, giving Ulquiorra a half-snarl.

“Tell me about it. Fuck this damn bullshit! Who knew having a brat came with such attachments?” Grimmjow growled.

Silence descended on them, broken only by the faint rustle of the breeze blowing through the branches of the intact trees on the circumference of the ring of destruction.

“Do you miss it sometimes?” Grimmjow suddenly asked, deflating a little.

“Miss what?”

Ulquiorra’s response held plenty of confusion. Thankfully, the other Espada provided a timely answer.

“The world before Aizen. Back when the only thing that mattered was hunting the white sands under a crescent moon and not getting eaten. You know, when things were a whole lot simpler.”

The question was surprisingly profound, coming from someone like Grimmjow, and he had to take a few minutes to ponder it. Did he miss his old, uncomplicated existence? The answer came far more quickly than he expected. Still, he waited for what he deemed an appropriate amount of time before speaking.

“No. Orihime was not part of that world, and in that world, I was alone. The hatred of those who might have been companions, or perhaps even fraccion, and their fear of me as a Vasto Lorde, kept me isolated. With regard to my prior existence in Hueco Mundo, there was little to ‘miss.’”

Ulquiorra went from gazing at the horizon to contemplating the rocky ground before him, aware that Grimmjow had turned to look at him.

“As displeasing and as… painful… as it is to lose my son, I have better memories of this last decade in the Soul Society, than in all of my previous decades in Hueco Mundo combined,” he confessed. “I would not go back to the nothingness of that time.”

“Yeah, me too,” Grimmjow agreed. “Our brats are strong. I know they will find a way to escape. The Swarm doesn’t know whom they are messing with. Give them a week, and I bet those damn bugs will come crawling to us on their bellies, begging us to take those two back.” he chuckled.

The mental image of Ajuga and Diaemus perpetrating the kind of chaotic destruction they did here in the Soul Society, the two raining down all kinds of holy hell on the Swarm brought a rare smirk to Ulquiorra’s mouth. His son was intelligent and capable. Grimmjow’s daughter was tough and cunning. Grimmjow was right. If there were a way to escape the Swarm’s clutches, Ajuga and Diaemus would find it and as much as he hated to admit it, those two worked well together.

Between the sparring session and the vision of his son and Ajuga causing widespread mayhem on the Swarm’s home turf, the Fourth Espada found he felt much better. Perhaps the Swarm _had_ made a critical, tactical error in taking the two. Besides, as he had told himself repeatedly, if the Swarm wanted to kill them, they would never have taken them alive.

They sat there for a while as the sun made its way westward, each keeping their own counsel and Ulquiorra considered returning to his den, to see what kind of progress Tatsuki had made with his mate. They’d been at this for a few hours, enough time for Orihime’s more ‘grounded’ friend to get through to her fellow human.

He was about to stand and leave Grimmjow to whatever business the other had to do today, when the Sixth leaned back on the slab of rough stone and let out deep breath. The fleeting grin he’d seen on the other’s face was gone and in its place was a harsh scowl. For some reason, Ulquiorra didn’t think that it was due to Ajuga and Diaemus’s abduction. A moment later, Grimmjow turned those electric-blue eyes towards him and for the third time in less than forty-eight hours, Ulquiorra had the feeling he was about to hear something incredibly unpleasant and just as unavoidable.


	41. 4th Division Bustle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unohana has a heck of a day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When this story was written, Mareyo had yet to be revealed as a little girl.

It came as a bit of a surprise when the seventy-hour ‘mark’ passed with no sign of the Swarm and no battle. Relief, both physical and mental, remained elusive however. The more time that ticked by, the more anxious the citizenry of Soul Society became, while others dared to hope that the interlude marked the beginning of the annual ‘Swarm Spring Withdrawal,’ as many in the 4th Division had unofficially dubbed the weeks leading up to the cessation of attacks.

Unohana privately counted herself as one of the latter. With the respite and the wounded from the last battle dealt with, she finally had time to see some of her other patients. The young woman hovering in her doorway was in because, according to the preliminary write up, she wasn’t ‘feeling well,’ rather than having sustained an injury. Unohana insisted on personally seeing every Claimed patient. Those souls bearing an Arrancar’s Claim were more willing to tell _her_ the truth about any mistreatment by their Masters and the ‘Masters’ in turn, were more likely to obey her if _she_ , rather than one of her staff, told them their ‘pets’ needed a few days’ rest. As much as she abhorred the invisible tether Aizen had wrapped around her neck, Unohana had to admit that being Kami’s ‘wife’ had a few small advantages.

Her patient list even included several civilians, for not everyone Claimed was a Shinigami. Karin was a prime example of that. Unohana took extra pains with these poor souls and not just because they were non-combatants.

“Good afternoon, Omaeda-san.”

Unohana greeted the young woman pleasantly, making a ‘come in’ gesture and affixing a welcoming smile to her face.

“Unohana-sama,” the slim young woman with honey-blonde hair replied and bowed politely, finally stepping into the room. Thankfully, she wore a simple, pink kimono and not a more elaborate furisode. If she determined the young lady’s problem warranted a more thorough exam, Unohana wouldn’t have to waste time getting her patient in and out of a more complex ensemble.

Mareyo, the late Omaeda-Fukutaichou’s youngest sister, took a seat on the examination table and carefully folded her hands in her lap. It was very hard to believe that the almost uniformly heavy-set Omaeda family had produced such a slender, beautiful girl. If Unohana hadn’t personally seen to her mother’s health while she’d been pregnant with Mareyo, the healer might not have believed it either. She was also one of the few civilians Claimed after the Winter War. With most of her immediate clan dead or, Unohana hoped, in hiding, her Master had taken over the impressive Omaeda mansion. He’d also seized the substantial Omaeda family fortune, as Mareyo was the only known surviving family member.

It was hard for Unohana to keep her neutral, agreeable mask in place when looking at Mareyo, but she had had a great deal of practice doing such over the last fifteen years. Omaeda Marenoshin and his wife Mareka had been colleagues of hers during their time with the Gotei 13, over a century prior, which was what made this particularly painful for her. Mareka, Marechiyo, the former Fukutaichou of the 2nd Division, and the oldest daughter, Maremi, had been on the casualty list compiled shortly after the Arrancar invasion. The whereabouts of the family’s other son, Marejirōsaburō and Mareyo’s father, the retired Fukutaichou of the 2nd Division, remained a mystery. Unohana wasn’t sure about the son, but knowing how deceptively competent Marenoshin had been at his job, she could only hope that he was still out there, watching and waiting for a way to help his surviving daughter.

The Arrancar who held Mareyo’s Claim hadn’t accompanied her. He was originally what Unohana deemed a ‘mid-level’ Claimer, or ‘Middle.’ It meant that the level of abuse Mareyo had experienced early on fell somewhere in the ‘middle’ of the ‘pet treatment spectrum.’ Mareyo, the gentle, sheltered youngest child of a family awash in riches, with no Shinigami training to her name, had been ill-prepared for what happened after the Arrancar invasion. The poor girl had barely reached her sixteenth year when circumstance ripped it all away. Her subsequent rape, enslavement, and the loss of the Estate weighed heavily on her for the first several years. This was before Szayel’s report regarding Orihime and Karin’s pregnancies made its way through the Arrancar ranks, prompting changes in behaviour.

Her Master now ranked on the ‘low’ end of the aforementioned scale. From Unohana’s past talks with Mareyo, he’d been shifting that way before the report circulated, as Mareyo learned what her Master wanted out of her. Pleasing him meant staying out of trouble, and out of the 4th Division’s emergency wards, a discovery Unohana wished the girl had never had to make in the first place. Surprisingly, he had let Mareyo continue to handle the mansion’s upkeep, as well as the remaining family businesses. As far as Unohana knew, those enterprises still turned a profit. While the Omaeda wealth wasn’t what it used to be, Unohana guessed that the surplus was still enough to keep the family home and staff at pre-Winter War levels. She also, thankfully, looked reasonably well fed. After finding out how Barragan had starved Soi Fon, Unohana had been far more vigilant about that sort of ‘punishment’ with regards to the Claimed.

“I am honoured you have the time to see me, given how busy everyone has been of late,” Mareyo continued, looking a bit unsure of herself. “I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t want to come here for something frivolous, but…”

 _Best start the examination, before she can talk herself out of it,_ the Taichou decided.

“I _always_ have time for my patients,” Unohana assured the young woman, responding with a warm smile that she hoped would put the girl at ease. “How have you been feeling lately?”

“Unwell,” Mareyo confessed. Her normally bright green eyes were downcast. “I’ve been having dizzy spells and a hard time keeping any food down lately and…” the young woman paused, fiddling with her fingers nervously.

“And?” Unohana prompted gently after her patient remained silent for some time, a mixture of worry and fear clouding her pretty features.

“I’m… late,” Mareyo finally owned up, wringing her hands. “It’s been three weeks.”

Unohana blinked at that, before ducking behind her professional demeanour once more.

 _Could it be?_ she wondered, her concern for the young woman she’d known since Mareyo was an infant growing as she considered whether or not a pregnancy might be a possibility. Mareyo had little reiatsu, compared to the rest of the Omaeda clan. Her Claimer had chosen her for her pretty looks and family wealth, not her spiritual pressure.

In theory, stress ought to be less common among the Claimed civilians than among their Shinigami counterparts. Most of them didn’t participate in the battles with the Swarm, so that set of stressors wasn’t an issue. It wasn’t as if the civilian population wasn’t anxious as a whole; the Seireitei was a city besieged and any population that found itself attacked on a chronic basis, whether a combatant or not, would exhibit stress-related strain of one sort or another. She also had to factor in any tension caused by the Arrancar that had Claimed Mareyo. Just because he’d become kinder and far less abusive of her didn’t mean that he might not suffer the occasional relapse into violence.

Of course, most of the women in the Shinigami ranks had access to birth control pills, something unfamiliar to the Arrancar and Unohana doubted that many of those women who found themselves Claimed mentioned the pills to their Claimers. She wasn’t certain about the civilian population, however. Some Masters, such as Nnoitra and Barragan, had denied birth control to their pets. Unohana didn’t understand the logic behind their decisions, given the two Espadas’ respective reactions to Rangiku and Soi Fon’s pregnancies. Thankfully, most of the lower-ranking Hollows had either proved more lenient in that regard or remained ignorant of the pills altogether. The healer felt, from the way that Mareyo spoke about being ‘late,’ that if Mareyo was this concerned about it, that contraception might not have come into play for a while, if ever.

“Well, we can do a full blood panel and check on that,” she found herself saying to her patient.

Opening the door, she gestured to her 10th Seat, who had been walking by with a large stack of clean bed linens, and requested the necessary equipment. A few minutes later, the man materialized with a tray and three syringes and a private message from her 3rd Seat asking if she needed some tea. Unohana shook her head and took the tray, intent on seeing if her suspicions were correct about what ailed Mareyo.

The young woman remained silent, with both hope and apprehension in her eyes as Unohana ran the tests and followed those up with a standard check-up and what an observer might think was a thorough interrogation, including questions about her Claimer. Mareyo at least denied any current wrongdoing on his part, which relieved her.

Near the end of the exam, Mareyo’s Master came to retrieve his pet. The Arrancar walked into the room without knocking, much as Nnoitra had done, but unlike the Espada, did not interfere with the proceedings. Then again, Mareyo wasn’t hyperventilating and in a state of near panic. Instead, he leaned against the wall and waited with a hint of impatience, although Unohana did not feel that his edginess was due to waiting so much as he was bored, tired, and ready to go home after a long day of work. If Unohana was any judge of character, he also appeared to be undressing his ‘pet’ with his eyes.

It was with great effort that the healer kept from grinding her teeth to powder.

Her 10th Seat soon returned with the results of Mareyo’s blood panel, handing the clipboard to his Taichou without any hesitation and left just as quickly, casting a wary look at the Arrancar in the room. Word had gotten out after what Nnoitra had done to her 4th Seat and there seemed to be some contest going on with the staff to see how quickly one could get in and out of a room with an Arrancar in it without sustaining an injury.

“Well?” Mareyo asked nervously, playing with her fingers as Unohana reviewed the results with a sinking heart. “Is there anything seriously wrong?”

 _That would depend on your perspective, my dear,_ the healer answered in the privacy of her own head and kept her expression from revealing her dismay.

The cause was exactly what Unohana had suspected and the blood test had only served to shore up the now-familiar list of symptoms. She also made a mental note to issue an order for all of those who were Claimed and _not_ on birth control take a pregnancy test, whether Shinigami or civilian. Unohana had the feeling that if there were more pregnancies, the women did not yet know about their conditions. She should have realized it when Tatsuki and Rangiku arrived with their duel cases of morning sickness. Unohana had initially attributed it to their cycles synching. It happened often among women who spent a great deal of time with one another, such as those dwelling in the women’s dormitory at the Academy, and Tatsuki and Rangiku had been practically living together when they’d come in.

Now, Unohana had to confront an alternative possibility: that both women’s bodies and systems had finally adjusted to the large amounts of reiatsu their Arrancar partners gave off, allowing for the survival of any resulting embryos. While Tatsuki hadn’t been Claimed as long as most, she _had_ lived with Ulquiorra before she’d taken on Tesra as a mate. Tesra’s lower level of reiatsu, compare to the Fourth Espada, would have allowed her to conceive far more easily once off the pills. It made sense, in a way and if it was true for the Shinigami, it was probably true for the general population as well. After living with their Arrancar Masters for so long, no doubt many of the pets’ bodies had acclimated themselves to their ‘owners’ powers. That, in turn, would make a conception more likely.

Unohana answered Mareyo’s question as carefully and as calmly as she could, keeping one eye on the young woman’s Master as she did so. Nnoitra’s willingness to storm her Division and his violence towards her people had caught her unawares and she didn’t want a repeat of that incident. To her great relief, the Arrancar in question peeled himself from the wall when she made the announcement, before a wide, satisfied grin spread across his face. Mareyo relaxed slightly, as her Master appeared pleased with the diagnosis and she gently placed one hand on her lower abdomen, looking down at her midsection with a thoughtful expression.

Most of the male Arrancar to whom she’d given similar news had reacted positively, even gleefully. Tesra had been downright giddy. The only exception had been Nnoitra Gilga and for a few days, she’d been concerned for Matsumoto’s well-being. Since then, she’d seen Rangiku briefly when the strawberry-blonde had come in to help with the wounded and learned that, once the shock wore off, he’d done an about-face and had started bragging to any and all who would listen about the impending twins. She had the feeling that he might even surpass Szayel at some point for sheer boastfulness.

Unohana recited her usual spiel about what Mareyo could expect as far as her pregnancy was concerned from a medical standpoint and made sure to tell the young woman to make an appointment to see the Seventh Espada at the Science and Research Division. Mareyo’s Master looked uncertain about that, which wasn’t much of a surprise given Szayel’s reputation amongst the lower ranks. However, Unohana’s ‘suggestion’ had the weight of Aizen’s orders behind it. Therefore, whatever objections the Arrancar might have had he kept to himself. The couple left shortly afterwards, with her Master escorting Mareyo proudly out, practically strutting in a way that would have given even a peacock like Yumichika a run for his feathers. She also didn’t miss the way he kept Mareyo close to him as they walked out the door, one hand firmly planted on her hip and his body language both possessive and protective.

 _What would Marenoshin think about the situation?_ she wondered, fingering the clipboard with the pregnancy report on it.

She’d seen her old colleague’s children grow up over the years and she doubted he would take the news about becoming a grandfather with good grace, not under these circumstances. At least Mareyo’s reaction hadn’t involved abject terror, like Rangiku. Unohana hoped that meant that she wouldn’t resent the child.

She let out a breath, eyes going back to the reports in her hands. As much as she hated to do it, she would have to tell her husband about Mareyo tonight. Still, the thought of three confirmed pregnancies, coming so close together after almost fifteen years of barren Shinigami women continued to nag at her.

“Iemura-san,” Unohana called out.

“Hai, Taichou?” her former third seat, now Fukutaichou, responded as he entered the room, balancing three clipboards and a rack of test tubes. For once, the glasses he disliked so much were perched on his forehead, as if he’d forgotten they were there. Unohana held up one hand, stopping him in the doorway, and then reached up to pluck them from his head and place them back on his nose. He blinked a few times and a blush crept across his cheeks.

“Ah, thank you Taichou. I’d wondered where I left those.”

She waved away his thanks and handed him her clipboard, which he took with a surprising amount of dexterity.

“Iemura-san, I would like pregnancy tests administered to every Claimed Shinigami woman, save for those who are already pregnant. Please send out a message to all the affected Shinigami. I would also like you to send out some of our newer recruits to visit the few civilians,” she ordered. “I want the results as soon as possible, preferably within the hour. Please clear your schedule of anything else to see to this. I’m afraid that I’m going to have to issue this as a direct order. If you must, use _Tenteikūra_ to transmit the directive. I’m afraid that discretion will have to take a backseat to timeliness, in this case.”

Stunned by the frankness of the order, he stared at her, before bowing and scurrying away. Somehow he'd managed to avoid being Claimed, something for which she was deeply thankful, as it meant that the actions of the 4th Division’s two top officers were their own. She could at least trust that he’d do what she asked without having to worry about any outside influences affecting his work or his healing abilities. Had he been a female, like her late and much-lamented Isane-chan, she doubted he would have retained his freedom.

Before melancholy thoughts of the woman that Iemura replaced could drag her mood further downwards, she set about preparing the room for the next patient. Unohana had just finished wiping down the examination table with disinfectant when a commotion at the far end of the hallway outside caught her attention. Putting down the bottle, the Taichou hurried out of the room and towards the main entrance, where the staff at the front desk was busy shouting orders and gaping out of the window.

 _Please, do not let it be Abarai-san on his knees and bleeding on the front walk again, or worse, Kuchiki Byakuya_ _…_ she prayed, hoping that what came through the door wasn’t something too terrible.

She reached the entrance just as Tia Harribel strode into the large waiting room, taking Unohana by surprise. The Espada had her arm around an injured Hana’s waist, supporting the girl. Hana looked to have tangled with something very nasty and lost, badly. Unohana took a step to the right as she heard the sounds of a gurney rattling up behind her, pushed by one of the recent graduates. Harribel helped the young woman up onto the gurney. Then she took a step back, turning her sea-green eyes Unohana’s way. The blonde’s expression told her, without words, that she had best see to the teenager immediately.

As affronted as she was at someone presuming to give _her_ orders within the walls of _her_ Division, Unohana _was_ pleased that at least some Arrancar took good care of their charges and didn’t treat the enslaved population like scum. Toshiro was probably the only Claimed Taichou who had yet to visit her wards. Well, she corrected herself, in Starrk’s defence, Jushiro’s various admittances had nothing to do with anything the Espada, or his fraccion, had done to him. As far as she knew, Harribel’s place on the abuse spectrum was on the far end of ‘low,’ sitting in the almost ‘non-existent’ category.

“What happened?”

Unohana questioned the Third as she made her way to the gurney and began her examination then and there to make sure the girl’s wounds weren't critical.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t Hana who answered. The poor child barely clung to consciousness. “Swarm patrol,” Harribel replied in her fraccion’s place, not elaborating.

The most preliminary examination told Unohana that, despite appearances, Hana's injuries weren't life-threatening. Still, she personally wheeled the stretcher down the halls into a patient room in the emergency ward before helping the girl onto the bed and pushing the gurney to the side. Harribel was kind enough to move the device out into the hall, getting it out of the way, before taking a seat in the room’s lone chair.

While in no danger of losing her life, Hana’s condition was far from optimum, covered as she was in lacerations and abrasions. Her ankle had swollen to three times its normal size, straining the ties to her sandal. The concussion came to light when the healer pried open one of the girl’s eyelids, taking into account the disparity in pupil sizes, which explained why she was desperately trying to keep from sleeping. The rest of her body had what Unohana suspected would be some gloriously vivid bruises, some to the bone, in the next few hours. Lastly, she added minor dehydration as well as sleep deprivation to the list of ailments. All in all, Unohana thought ruefully, the child was a mess. A fixable mess, thankfully, but a mess just the same.

Her hands filled with green light and Unohana first addressed the concussion, bringing the swelling in Hana’s gray matter down and under control before gently sending the young woman off to sleep and carefully stripping the girl of her uniform so that she could see to all of her other wounds. Through it all, Harribel remained as still as a statue, leaving the healer to work in peace and staying respectfully out of her way.

Once she’d seen the worst of Hana’s injuries and inserted an IV line into her arm with some saline laced with a dose of antibiotics and a general anti-viral vaccine, Unohana turned her full attention to the silent Espada in the room.

“Has her mother been informed you brought her here?” she asked, trying to phrase the question as politely as she could.

“Toshiro will have told her by now,” Harribel responded, her eyes never leaving Hana’s pale face. “He desired to stay, but has duties of his own, including going over the ambush site. The attack took place within his Division’s jurisdiction.”

Unohana nodded in understanding. It was a dilemma she often faced every battle, where she had to remain behind to care for the wounded and dutifully run her Division when the lure to fight and help hold the lines beckoned.

Hana was relatively fine for someone who had been mauled, beaten, and bloodied. She would probably recover enough to go home the following day, now that Unohana had seen to the head injury. As much as she would have liked to have used more of her energy to completely mend Hana’s ankle, the joint wasn’t broken and therefore, she couldn’t justify expending the Kido to do so, not when the Swarm could attack at any moment. Hana would have to resign herself to doing paperwork for a week or so while it healed on its own.

“She is lucky to be alive if she ran into a Swarm patrol while on duty. I thought that she had an Arrancar partner,” Unohana commented with a frown. “How did he report the incident? I’m assuming that he was in the vicinity?”

Harribel’s eyes grew hard and cold and Unohana wondered if she’d brought up a touchy subject.

“She wasn’t alone. Diaemus and Ajuga were with her. The Swarm took them both and left Hana for dead,” Harribel told her in a chilly tone. “When I’ve finished my business here, I’m going to have a few private words with the Arrancar about why he abandoned his patrol in mid-shift, if Kami has not already seen fit to question him.”

Unohana stiffened in shock. Taken? The Swarm had _never_ taken anyone in all the years that the insects had besieged the Seireitei. Why in all of the Realms would they take the children now? Aside from the fact that both were human-Arrancar hybrids, there was little to distinguish Ajuga and Diaemus from the vast majority of the other Hollows residing in the Soul Society. In addition, the Swarm hated Hollows. Why capture when they could have killed the two?

Perhaps the unspoken questions running through her head had leaked out into her stunned expression, because the blonde ran a tired hand through her hair and gave her a sidelong glance.

“They did not run into a ‘normal’ patrol. Instead, the three chose to attack a patrol that for some reason included one of the Swarm’s Generals. According to Hana, Ajuga wanted to bring a live specimen to Szayel. Aizen-Kami has given Ajuga’s mother and her pet twenty-four hours to try to locate the children. However, he does not feel that re-allocating more resources to search for a mere two warriors is prudent.”

Harribel did _not_ sound happy with that decision. Unohana disliked it as well, finding it typical of her ‘husband’s’ callous attitude towards his underlings, but she understood the reasoning from a purely tactical point of view. She doubted the late Soutaichou, if confronted with similar circumstances, would have done anything differently. Two soldiers, no matter their rank or relations, did not warrant weakening their defences. Her practical side understood and accepted that. Her other half wanted to strangle her husband with his sash, run him through with Minazuki, and start looking for them herself.

 _Orihime and Karin must be devastated,_ she thought sadly. She also made a note to warn the front desk to not only direct Ise Nanao to her daughter’s room when she arrived, but to be on the lookout for an injured Numeros later on in the day, if what she feared Harribel would do to the one who should have been with Hana played out.

Then Harribel tore her eyes away from Hana, letting Unohana see a brief glimmer of the deep concern in them before the ‘guarded’ expression she normally wore returned. It was amazing, given the Espada’s preference for high collars, just how much emotion the woman’s eyes could convey when she allowed it.

“There… is one more thing I would like to ask you,” Harribel said hesitantly.

 _Oh yes,_ Unohana thought, _‘_ _guarded_ _’_ _did not begin to describe it._

“Toshiro speaks well of you and your reputation for confidentiality. A concern of a medical nature has come to light in the last several days and I would like your opinion on it.”

Unohana’s eyebrow went up, but she quickly smoothed out her features and nodded at the oddly worded request.

“Of course. Do you wish to move to another room or remain here?” she asked, indicating Hana’s unmoving form. Harribel considered the option before shaking her head.

“We may remain here. I believe she is fast asleep and will hear nothing of our conversation. If she does overhear anything, I trust Hana to remain discreet about what we say, unlike my other fraccion,” she added wryly. “I also have an excuse for being in this room. If we left for another examination room, others would wonder at the cause. I would nip any rumour mongering in the bud.”

Harribel’s reticence might have stemmed, Unohana considered, from the typical Arrancar’s dislike for revealing any weaknesses to potential enemies. On the other hand, she might very well have other reasons for wanting their discussion to remain private. Looking closer at the only female Espada, the healer thought she could detect more than a little nervousness in the tight carriage of her shoulders and in the stiff posture she presented. Either way, Harribel had something she wanted to discuss with the 4th Division’s Taichou and she had a duty to those who asked for help.

“Very well. Let me seal the room. Once I’ve finished, you can tell me anything you wish.”

Unohana closed and locked the door before activating the privacy Kido ingrained within the walls. The trigger involved a small infusion of her reiatsu. Her predecessor and instructor, Kirinji Tenjirō, had built and installed the system and she couldn’t help the stab of grief that lanced her heart when she felt it ‘start.’ If Omaeda Marenoshin had been a respected colleague, Kirinji-Taichou had been a close, personal friend, one she’d mourned greatly when she’d learned that the Royal Guardsman had died defending the Spirit King. While the Kido would not block sounds, lest it render her staff unable to locate her in the event of an emergency, it would make the voices within the room unrecognizable, no matter how sharp the potential eavesdropper’s hearing. The system was as ingenious as Kirinji himself had been and a few other rooms used variations of it throughout the Seireitei, including each Taichou’s office. He’d probably also installed it in half of the structures in the old 2nd Division, to prevent the leakage of sensitive documents and reports.

When she’d finished, she turned to the taller woman and inclined her head, inviting her to share what was on her mind. An Espada conceding that he or she had a ‘concern’ was as good as an admission of fear and _that_ intrigued the healer.

“This room is secure. Now, how may I assist you, Harribel-san?”

The Espada’s reply wasn’t what she expected it would be.

Harribel reached up and grabbed the metal tab at the bottom of her jacket front. She pulled upward, and the zipper’s teeth parted with a ‘purr’, revealing the upper portion of her normally hidden torso and face. Surprisingly, she kept her eyes downcast, the long, golden lashes standing out against her caramel-colored skin and she left the sides of the jacket open once the slider reached the top of the high collar.

Unohana had never witnessed an Arrancar’s mask in mid-transformation before and the sight startled her. It wasn’t hard to discern where the missing portions of her mask had once been. There was a large, horizontal stripe of paler skin across her face, starting from the midpoints of her cheek, crossing the bridge of her nose at the top and included the lower half of her nose, her cheeks and her upper lip. The remaining bone covered her chin, her bottom lip and her jawline, the segment meshing like a finely crafted armour joint with the portion of her mask that protected her throat.

The part of her mask that had once concealed the juncture of her collarbone and her nipples had shrunk as well, leaving the latter bare. The bronze-colored aureoles stood out against her recently exposed, milky flesh.

“My mask is changing. I noticed that it had begun to recede in the last several days, as you can tell from the skin. While it is not unheard of for a Hollow’s mask to transform over time, such a transmutation typically occurs in conjunction with a significant event, such as a substantial increase or decrease in power. It doesn’t happen in the matter of a mere week.”

The blonde-haired woman reached up, ran her fingers gingerly down the front of her nose to the tip, and then brushed her fingertips across her pale upper lip. It seemed as if she was self-conscious about the newly unprotected body parts. She also, perhaps unwittingly, moved to support her bosom by wrapping one arm around her ribs. Harribel’s newly truncated mask structure had apparently created a few unforeseen problems concerning modesty, as well as hindering her ability to fight.

“What bothers me is that I cannot say that I’ve experienced such an increase in strength, despite the constant exercise and use of my Resurrección with Toshiro in battle. I’m afraid that I’m at a loss,” she concluded, sounding just as confounded as Unohana was by the development.

Unohana approached the woman and gently prodded the pale section of flesh on her left breast. It was warm to the touch, but the texture was finer. The healer likened it to the skin one would find beneath a cast once one removed the plaster and gauze coverings.

“Have you noticed any extra sensitivity, compared to other areas?” the healer asked.

“No…” came the answer, “…although there are… parts that now react to cold temperatures and rough texture.”

This time she managed to suppress the knowing smile that threatened to break out on her face. The Espada seemed downright embarrassed by this and compounding Harribel’s discomfort wouldn’t do Unohana any favours. It didn’t help, Unohana thought, that she’d never truly seen Harribel’s face outside of her Resurrección’s release. From what she could discern, the mask had previously covered all but the Espada’s eyes. Now, like an icicle beneath the summer sun, it had begun to diminish. Unohana thought back to what she remembered of the woman’s unsealed state, in which one could see the entirety of her nose and mouth. If memory served, that form included two cerulean marks curving down from her high cheekbones to a point a few inches to either side of her mouth. A closer examination of the new skin revealed just that - pale skin with no marks at all. Unohana frowned, a number of questions forming in her head and one large hunch looming like a shadow behind them.

“Have you noticed any similar changes to your mask’s appearance when you activate your Resurrección?”

That made Harribel pause. Then she shook her head in denial.

“Toshiro would have told me if he’d noticed anything. He has…” and here she seemed to search for a diplomatic way of putting what she was about to say “…a sense of decorum that would demand informing me of such.”

 _What you mean to say is that he would have turned beet-red upon viewing the entirety of your breasts,_ Unohana thought wryly and immediately chided herself. It wasn’t her place to judge such things, though she’d often wondered how Harribel’s anatomy had managed to defy the forces of gravity for so long without breast-bindings or some kind of supportive garment. Perhaps she’d used the same secret technique Matsumoto Rangiku had perfected over the years. The healer sighed inwardly at the unfairness of the universe and refocused on the problem. Whatever was happening only affected her normal, sealed state then and her Resurrección remained the same.

“Have you spoken to Szayel-san about this yet? He is far more knowledgeable about Hollow physiology than I.”

“No. He is busy and very distracted, especially after what happened yesterday. I do not wish to detract from his efforts to find Ajuga-chan.”

That was certainly understandable. In addition, there was the usual jockeying for power among the Espada to consider. Confessing a weakness to a lower-ranking Arrancar was a risky business. While Unohana doubted that Szayel would ever act upon such a revelation, the Third Espada probably had reservations about pointing out a potential chink in her proverbial armour. In this case, the nature of the ‘cracks’ had proved literal, if in fact the changes indicated something had gone wrong at all.

She could see she would have to assuage Harribel’s misgivings about visiting the Seventh Espada and allowing him, or perhaps Nemu, to view the changes. Fortunately, Karin had mitigated Szayel’s less-than-principled tendencies over the last decade. His human Mistress had forced Unohana’s very own code of ethics on him, requiring him to follow it to the letter. The 4th Division Taichou had been surprised, flattered and amused when Karin asked her for a copy of the text and recalled that Szayel had pouted for some time after Karin had, in his words ‘inflicted such handcuffs on a brilliant scientific mind.’ The result rendered what remained of the old 12th Division relatively safe, allowing almost anyone to walk into the building without having to fear unwilling modifications, infections, or the possibility of ending up in a storage jar. Unohana included the years that Urahara Kisuke directed the Division in that assessment. As much as she’d liked Urahara, he’d shared Kurotsuchi’s penchant for telling half-truths, leaving out critical information about experiments and failing to issue warnings about hazardous goings-on, even if he wasn’t guilty of experimenting on visitors.

“Do you mind if I take samples, for analysis? I’d like some scrapings of your skin and your mask to rule out any possible allergic reactions or infections.”

Harribel nodded, granting permission. Unohana gathered the needed supplies from the cabinets along the side of the room and took a few, thin slivers of exterior bone and a small strip of skin from both her left cheek and her right breast, with a Kido-infused scalpel to bypass the Espada’s Hierro. She also drew several vials of blood, to screen for pathogens or hormonal imbalances. The usual round of questions followed, such as whether she’d noticed any changes in her weight, her sleeping patterns, any physical pain or illnesses. Harribel met each inquiry with a ‘no’, until Unohana neared the end of the questionnaire and asked the blonde about absentmindedness or troubles with concentration, which might be attributable to stress.

“There was an incident, a few weeks ago.”

“An incident? Can you describe it?”

If she’d been embarrassed about her breasts, now Harribel exhibited what Unohana could only describe as utter mortification.

“Several weeks ago, I became distracted during a skirmish with one of the locust clusters. I did not see the beetle below us. If Toshiro had not pulled me out of the way in time, the creature’s acid stream would have hit me. Of late, I’ve found myself feeling out of sorts, restless even. It’s as if I’ve lost the ability to focus at times. I’d assumed that the fatigue… the ‘blanking out’ was from fighting the Swarm every other day, but now I’m uncertain what’s truly behind it.”

The shadow, which had been skulking around Unohana’s thoughts ever since she’d given Mareyo the news about her pregnancy, reared up in Unohana’s mind’s eye, forcing her to consider the changes in Harribel’s mask from a different point of view. Admittedly, she’d rarely seen any of the female Arrancar for anything other than a serious, battle-related injury, but when the Third had brought up ‘significant events’ it had struck a chord. Unohana knew Ajuga’s mask fragment had changed over the years, adjusting to accommodate the young girl’s growing height and the formation of her breasts when puberty had come calling.

A pregnancy would certainly constitute a ‘significant event’ in the life of an Arrancar female, Unohana imagined. Of course, what held true for Ajuga, as both a hybrid and as one naturally born might not pertain to the ones that had evolved from lesser Hollows. Was the perpetual stress everyone laboured under since the fall of the Defence Net to blame? None of the males had come to her with changes in their masks and to the best of her knowledge, both the male _and_ female Arrancar took the same risks and fought equally hard during the encounters with the Swarm. Unohana gently inquired if any of Harribel’s fraccion had experienced similar changes or if it was just Harribel herself and received another headshake.

She was just finishing up when someone knocked on the door. Hana still slept peacefully, or at least pretended to do so. Harribel quickly closed her jacket, but kept her arm where it could act as a shelf for her breasts. Excusing herself, Unohana moved to open the door to find Iemura standing there, nervously adjusting his glasses and looking as if he’d swallowed a frog. The source of her Fukutaichou’s anxiety stemmed from the unusually large stack of papers in his arms.

“Taichou, I have the reports you wanted. Forgive me, but we decided to test the women who were on pills as well, since we all know there’s a one percent failure rate even when taken as directed. We sent out all the new recruits we could spare to make sure we could get to everyone on the list and they obtained the blood samples while out in the field. That saved us the time of having all of the women come in for sample collection. Those same recruits also ran the tests, and to be sure, we had each sample tested twice.”

“What did they find?” Unohana asked quietly, dreading the answer.

Iemura had the queasy bearing of a messenger sent to deliver unhappy news. From his demeanour, she guessed that the number of pregnancies had to be far greater than even she anticipated.

“Of the sixty-four Claimed females from whom we collected samples, twelve of those tested came back positive for the pregnancy hormone,” he reported.

“Twelve!” she breathed in shock before recovering her wits and quickly issuing another order. “Have the twelve and their Masters report in at…”

She found her mouth refused to work, the words dying in her throat before she could say them. They’d just counted twelve hybrid pregnancies among the Shinigami population in the space of less than a month, which worked out to a nearly nineteen percent conception rate. That percentage rate rose to twenty-two percent if they factored in Rangiku, Tatsuki and Mareyo. The blood drained from her face as all of the implications hit her at once.

 _This isn_ _’_ _t a coincidence_ _…_ _this is an epidemic!_ Unohana realized. Then another thought struck her and she whirled around to stare at a somewhat confused Harribel.

If it _were_ an epidemic of sort, a mass adjustment on the part of the female Shinigami population to the reiatsu imposed on it by Aizen’s Arrancar army, wouldn’t it also stand to reason that the adaptation might go both ways? She’s been so concerned about the subjugated Shinigami women that she’d nearly overlooked the possibility of an adjustment on the part of those Shinigami men Claimed by Arrancar females. There were far fewer female Arrancar than males in the occupying forces and Unohana couldn’t remember ever offering any kind of birth control to any of them, nor any of them asking for it. Those Claimed men rarely, if ever, showed up in her wards for injuries caused by their Claimers, so it wasn’t surprising to her that she hadn’t immediately thought about them as a whole. Hitsugaya Toshiro was a prime example of such a man.

 _Out of sight, out of mind,_ she told herself. Nevertheless, it was something she had to consider. Unohana turned and with trembling fingers, plucked the vials of Harribel’s blood and the skin and bone samples from the rack where she’d placed them, originally intending to have the lot of it sent for a full work-up. Carefully walking back to the door, she handed it to Iemura, who traded his stack of papers for it. She pitched her voice just above a whisper when she spoke and she watched him swallow nervously.

“Run the same tests you just ran on the others on this sample, and then do the standard cultures on the bone and skin samples. Keep the remainder on standby if necessary. I want you to do it yourself and not leave it to anyone of lesser rank in this Division. Report back to me immediately once you have the results and above all, tell no one else.”

Iemura promptly vanished, taking the samples with him. Unohana closed the door and reactivated the privacy Kido. If the citizenry at large had begun to acclimate to the higher reiatsu levels of the Arrancar, if a low-reiatsu soul such as Omaeda Mareyo had already conceived and if what she suspected was the reason for Harribel’s mutating mask turned out to be true, it boded ill for Unohana herself. A small, cold knot formed in the pit of her stomach, which she ignored in favour of handling her current case.

“I need to ask this: when did you finish with your last cycle?”

Harribel seemed startled by the question and struggled to find a way to answer it.

“I… I don’t really have them.”

That was a surprise and for a few moments, Unohana considered that her hunch was wrong.

“Did you sustain an injury of some kind that would result in a cessation of menstruation?”

“You might say that.”

The Espada looked away, her posture going from ‘reluctant’ to downright ‘cagey.’

Unohana, her brow knitting with consternation, moved to stand before the seated woman, clearly baffled by the answer and by Harribel’s wariness.

“Would you mind if I examined you with Kido?”

Harribel looked as if she wanted to refuse and seemed to be engaged in some internal argument with her instincts, before she grudgingly nodded a few moments later. Unohana took a deep breath and descended into _Jinzen,_ letting the energy in her hands gradually seep into the region below the Espada’s navel.

What she discovered both stunned and fascinated her. The spot where the woman’s womb should have been was empty and Unohana grasped that what she was seeing was Harribel’s Hollow hole. Why it was located there, instead of where her heart would have been, escaped the healer and she sternly told herself it was a secondary issue. What really bewildered her was the fact that, despite the lack of a proper uterus between two splendid, textbook examples of perfectly healthy fallopian tubes and ovaries, she could detect the compact, seething reiatsu of a vigorous embryo and its placenta, surrounded on all sides by a thick, pulsing barrier of intensely powerful energy. It was so strong in fact, that it sent a shiver through the healer when her awareness brushed against it. Somewhere above her, she could hear Harribel gasp and Unohana immediately pulled the exploratory Kido back, lest it cause any problems.

For the first time in her medical career, she found herself at a complete loss.

How in the world was this kind of contradiction possible? The Shinigami sank deeper into the trance in order to analyze the barrier that served to separate the budding life from the nothingness that encircled it. Moments ticked into minutes and she nearly forgot why she was looking in the first place, confronted by the riddle beneath her fingertips. She didn’t want to assume anything until Iemura returned with Harribel’s results, and while such an extraordinary paradox ought not to have existed in the first place, she couldn’t dispute what lay beneath her hands.

An Arrancar who lacked a vital reproductive organ was now in the first stages of a pregnancy. Instead, an energy barrier took on the role of a missing uterus. It not only served to protect the developing child from that inner void, but also served as a source of nourishment, if the thin strands of reiatsu leading to and from it acted in a manner similar to an umbilical cord and a placenta. Part of the barrier, woven together from two different flavours of reiryoku _,_ clearly originated with Harribel, laced as it was with blood vessels that fed into the surrounding tissue.

The majority of it, however, had a different source and Unohana didn’t need to test it to determine an identity. She would know the pattern of Hitsugaya Toshiro’s icy-blue reiryoku anywhere. For a moment, the healer wasn’t sure _how_ the two disparate signatures had meshed so seamlessly, to create the small sanctuary within Harribel’s body. If the proportions of each were a clue to its construction, Unohana would have to say that the pale-haired Taichou’s energy had overpowered that of his Mistress to not only create the child itself, but also ensure its survival.

Unohana abruptly felt light-headed. Her legs grew rubbery and the cold knot in her gut grew much larger. Only her professional demeanour kept her from going to her knees and after making sure that there were no other abnormalities, she withdrew her awareness from her patient and took a few steps back.

 _A_ _‘_ _significant event_ _’_ _indeed,_ she thought and took a few deep breaths to ground herself before speaking. When she opened her eyes, she found the Third Espada, brows drawn, staring back at her, apparently waiting for an explanation. The problem was that Unohana wasn’t certain that she’d be able to say anything that didn’t sound like an astounded squeak.

_Did I say, epidemic? How foolish! This is going to be a damned tsunami!_

She supposed that a Shinigami male’s adaptation might involve, over time and repeated exposure, developed sperm strong enough to withstand a female Arrancar’s reiatsu and ensure conception. As this was the first time she’d ever encountered _anything_ like the phenomenon going on between Harribel’s hipbones, she could only assume that the power gap between Toshiro and his Mistress had narrowed to the point where neither parent’s contribution would undo the other’s input. In fact, it looked to Unohana as if Toshiro’s influence and reiryoku might not be more vital to the baby’s survival than Harribel’s, as the majority of the barrier appeared to be his in origin.

“Did you find anything, Unohana-Taichou?” Harribel asked, sounding as if she was trying to be polite.

 _How do I respond to that without becoming a gibbering mess?_ Unohana asked herself.

Fortunately, another knock on the door came to her rescue, giving her something to focus on other than what she’d just encountered. It was Iemura with a single sheet of paper. The frog he’d swallowed had become a crocodile, if she read his deeply disturbed expression correctly. He must have seen the equally disquieted look on hers because he handed her the report and pressed his lips together. She didn’t need to look at it to know what it would say, but made a show of it anyway.

“Please wait here for further instructions, Iemura-san.”

“Hai, Taichou!” he replied to her request and took up a vigilant position to the left of the door, hands clasped behind his back. Unohana securely locked the door a third time before turning to face her patient, armed with the sheet of paper that would act as both a confirmation and a cover for her own rattled nerves.

It wasn’t as if Harribel couldn’t guess what Unohana would tell her, if the sudden widening of her eyes were any indication. Toshiro had once mentioned that his Mistress was an extremely observant woman… maybe not as sharp as Starrk or the late Shunsui, but intelligent enough to put facts and clues together and get a correct answer. Still, the Espada had come to her for help and confidentiality. At the very least, she owed her patient an official diagnosis. Thus, she squared her shoulders and calmed her emotions by sheer force of will, turning a serene smile on the blonde before speaking.

“Congratulations, Harribel-san. I can say, without a shadow of a doubt, that you are pregnant. At present, you are also the first confirmed Arrancar pregnancy.”

Silence followed, as Harribel’s eyes grew even larger and then darted down to her midsection. Unohana waited, poised but not sure as to why she was on edge. The only sounds in the room for a few minutes were the ticking on the clock on the wall and the whisper of Hana’s deep, even breathing coming from the room’s bed.

“So it took less time than we believed…” Unohana thought she heard Harribel murmur to herself, her eyes filling with wonder as she placed her hand on her abdomen. Then she leaned back in the chair, tilting her head back until it rested against the wall and closed her eyes. This time she definitely heard the woman raggedly whisper the word “Finally…” as well.

Did that mean that the Third Espada and Toshiro, like Tesra and Tatsuki, planned this? At least she wasn’t alarmed or terrified, as Unohana suspected some of the Claimed Shinigami might be when she spoke with them later. If the last bit implied what she thought it did, then the only thing about it that Harribel might not have expected, ironically, would have been the changes to her mask.

“It has been a very long time since I was last with child. Regrettably, I never got to see it.” Harribel let out a depressed sigh along with the bare-bones explanation, but the shadowed look in her eyes didn’t last long and Unohana didn’t pry. “I wasn’t even sure if… if this was possible… given the obstacles.”

To Unohana, it was an admission that Harribel was well aware of her anatomical abnormality. She would have to make sure that Szayel forwarded a copy of Harribel’s report to the 4th Division, once she sent the Third off to see him as she’d done with Mareyo. The healer had the feeling the Seventh might actually go so far as to have a minor stroke once he saw what she had sensed with his ultrasound. On a more personal level, Unohana could use it as an excuse to speak with the scientist. If there was, indeed, a large wave of pregnancies about to hit the Seireitei in the coming year, both of their Divisions would have to be prepared and she wanted to discuss her suspicions about the reasons behind it with him.

“I will need to tell Toshiro and my girls,” she heard Harribel say and Unohana immediately directed her attention back to the woman sitting in the chair.

The blonde had gone from staring at her stomach in awe to regarding Unohana with an amount of gratitude that, in light of what she’d said about her previous pregnancy, didn’t entirely seem out of place.

“I was wise to come to you, as you have not only solved the issue of my changing mask, but given me joyous news. I can’t believe I did not think of this! Of course I would need my mouth and breasts free to care for an infant.”

Unohana couldn’t argue with that statement, especially coming from a Hollow’s point of view. If she’d conceived in Hueco Mundo, of course Harribel would require such an alteration in her mask. Things were thankfully different here in the Soul Society. While little changed over the years here, other than in the Divisions dedicated to science and medicine, the majority of the general population had long since abandoned the practice of mothers chewing their food for their babies. Then again, she considered, those in the poorer Rukongai Districts probably still did so thanks to the lack of electricity and modern conveniences such as blenders. As most souls living in those outlying areas of the city had little need of food anyway, she also supposed that the issue was a moot one. A naturally born Arrancar, in contrast, would require immediate sustenance upon birth, the same as any normal Plus born with inordinately high amounts of reiryoku and reiatsu.

Harribel and Toshiro’s child, even at this early stage, might surpass his or her parents for sheer strength, from what she’d detected. Having a mouth free to consume enough food to keep a fetus and such a strange substitute for a proper uterus going, without having to expend the energy to slip into her Resurrección also seemed reasonable.

With the mystery solved, Unohana moved to check on Hana one more time, and was unsurprised to discover she was still fast asleep. As exciting as the news was, Harribel assured her she would remain by Hana’s side until her mother or the First arrived, as Toshiro was on duty and in the middle of an important investigation. Unohana had to agree with her that there was no point distracting him from trying to find any leads on where the Swarm patrol might have taken Ajuga and Diaemus.

“I hope he can find something,” Harribel said softly as she moved her chair closer to Hana’s bedside, her eyes roving over the visible bruises and bandages, down to her splinted ankle. “She fought so hard to get back to tell us what happened to them. She even refused medical attention until she’d had a chance to report. I can only imagine what Starrk and Lilynette will think when they hear of this.”

Unohana wasn’t so worried about what the collective First might think as what they might _do_ about the problem. If there was one person she would not want to be right now, it was the Numeros who had been Hana’s partner. Harribel struck Unohana as the kind that might at least _listen_ to an explanation before indulging in a beat-down, as someone in her long-ago past had once put it. Lilynette, on the other hand, was the sort that tended to smack first and ask questions after the fact.

“I will have to report your pregnancy to Kami-sama. I must also ask that you make an appointment with Szayel for an examination with his equipment. There are some… anomalies about it that I will admit are entirely out of my range of experience, though the fetus appears to be quite strong. He will be able to give you far more information about your particular case, as well as what you might be able to expect than I can. He is under direct orders from his Mistress, to be both frank with expectant mothers as well as entirely transparent about any tests he orders.”

If the faint glimmer of concern in Harribel’s eyes was any indication of exactly how fearsome Szayel’s reputation for both twisted experimentation and underhanded methods had once been, Unohana could sympathize. She might have felt the same way about visiting Szayel’s predecessor, had she been less skilled or less powerful. There had been times with Kurotsuchi that she’d questioned Urahara’s sanity in springing him from the Maggot’s Nest in the first place, let alone making the former inmate his 3rd Seat.

“May I wait until tomorrow? With Toshiro busy and with Hana here…” she inquired, and then her voice faltered. “I would like a little time to discuss things with Toshiro then, and perhaps with the First if they’re amenable.”

The dark-haired healer almost said that she had little leeway in this, and then paused and considered the request. When she finally pieced together why Harribel seemed both elated and anxious as well as why she might want to involve Starrk and Lilynette of all people, Unohana found herself dismayed.

It was one thing for an Arrancar’s pet to conceive. Mareyo’s Master would most likely keep the young woman under careful guard and away from all danger. Nnoitra had done something similar with Rangiku, limiting her involvement in the battles by placing her with the Kido units. However, it was another thing entirely for one of Aizen’s strongest Espada to come back with a positive pregnancy test. Working together, The Third and Toshiro were one of her ‘husband’s’ strongest weapons against the Swarm. To have one of them taken out of the equation because she was pregnant would hurt the Seireitei’s already overtaxed defenders. The novelty of being the first pregnant Arrancar female might not be enough to keep Aizen from ordering Harribel to terminate it if it proved an inconvenience to his tenuous hold on the Seireitei and his ‘empire’. She might not even have _that_ protection if what Unohana guessed was in progress had also affected the other female Arrancar.

“I see no reason why not. I can delay things for a short time, if it will help. Take tonight for yourselves,” she began, but stopped when Harribel shook her head, though the appreciation she could see in Harribel’s eyes doubled when she said this.

“I’ve patrol duty this evening, unfortunately. I’ll speak with Szayel tomorrow morning and inform Toshiro and my fraccion afterwards, once I hear what the Seventh has to say,” the blonde replied with some regret and Unohana wasn’t sure if she was talking about her condition or the results of Szayel’s search for the two hybrid children.

“Then I’ll take my leave. If anything should change with Hana, please have a staff member fetch me immediately.”

Harribel nodded and went back to watching her young fraccion sleep. Unohana undid the privacy Kido, reached for the stack of pregnancy reports, placed Harribel’s on the top of the stack and quietly left the room. Her Fukutaichou turned and looked at her from his spot against the hallway wall. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she tried to decide what to do next. Conducting pregnancy tests on Claimed female Shinigami had probably been the easy part. The next task would no doubt prove more difficult for all involved. Still, if it bought the woman in the room she’d just left a little more time…

“Iemura-san.”

“Hai, Unohana-Taichou,” he replied and moved to stand next to her, his hands reaching for the stack of papers. When she pursed her lips and gave him a frown he snatched them back and waited.

“Send our most senior staff out to conduct the same experiment. This time, I would like them to test _every_ Arrancar female, with the exception of the Third Espada.”

Her second-in-command’s jaw dropped, but he quickly recovered as she went on. “If they refuse, that is fine. I will speak to my husband tonight and I’m sure he will issue a command of his own. It will allow us to deal with what we have on our plates today. As for the Claimed Shinigami, send the new recruits out to inform those with one of today’s positive pregnancy tests, with the exception of Omaeda-san, that I wish to see every one of them face-to-face before the end of the day as well as their Masters. Have the rest of the preliminary tests completed within the next hour, but do not tell them the reason for the summons. I will be the one to break the news to them.”

“What about… this?” he asked, and she could tell, even behind his sunglasses, that he was eyeing the top report on the stack. Unohana sighed and handed him the pile of paper, reaching out and taking the report affirming Harribel’s pregnancy. She folded it carefully and tucked it into her uniform, well within her inner kosode.

“I doubt that we’ll be able to get full compliance with _all_ of the female Arrancar today, and as far as you and I are concerned, the Third Espada is here to watch over Hana until the girl’s family arrives. Secure the blood and tissue samples you took until tomorrow and we’ll cobble together a report that includes it in the next two days or so, depending on just how reluctant some of those Arrancar turn out to be as far as the tests. I’d like her to see Szayel and get his opinion on what I saw. Once you’ve given the new recruits, the senior staff and the lab technicians their orders, come to my office. I have a message I want you to take to Szayel… and _only_ Szayel.”

Iemura, with his usual efficiency, committed all of her instructions to memory, despite the uneasiness she could see in the set of his mouth. It was all very ‘cloak and dagger’ of her, not her usual style of handling things and her Fukutaichou knew it.

 _Extraordinary times require extraordinary measures,_ Unohana supposed with a sigh.

“You are dismissed,” she told him, a little more gently this time.

It was, admittedly, a great deal to take in all at once. Iemura gave her a bow before hurrying off to carry out her commands, which left her to her own darkening thoughts in the middle of the hallway. Turning, she made her way back to the questionable sanctuary of her office, where she found a pot of tea, warmed by Kido, waiting for her on her desk. Evidently, her 3rd Seat had decided to overrule her as far as providing her superior with the much-needed mild stimulant.

 _Bless you_ _…_ she sighed and poured herself a cup, sitting down and savouring it before anything else could interrupt the short break. Unohana told herself she’d probably have to tell her 3rd Seat to clear her schedule of anything not deemed an emergency, just to be safe, before she allowed herself the brief luxury of examining her own, precarious situation.

Aizen had taken her almost every night for fifteen long years and she was no weakling. Gin’s hypothesis, about Aizen’s raw power dooming any pregnancy that might have taken hold within her, had proved true. There had been only one, short-lived success and Unohana had privately cried tears of happiness the moment she discovered the miscarriage in progress, even if it had led to more suffering on Gin’s part as the tyrant had taken out his rage on the former Taichou’s helpless body.

If it had reached the point where an Arrancar female _without the proper organ for a successful pregnancy_ could find herself with child, how much longer would it be before Aizen finally succeeded in forcing _her_ to conceive? He’d been supposedly letting his power drain away, to allow such to happen without inadvertently killing the embryo. She couldn’t assume, because they were both Shinigami that what held true for both Omaeda Mareyo and Tia Harribel wouldn’t also hold true for her. Unohana’s hands clenched around the teacup and she had to fight to keep the unrealized fear from paralyzing her for the rest of the day.

She took another sip, then another and closed her eyes, concentrating on mastering her emotions in the same way she’d once learned to control her shaking hands while holding a scalpel, until she’d consumed the entire cup. Invoking it as a mantra, she silently recited a short catalogue of reasons not to panic. First, Aizen’s power was still an enormous impediment, with the addition of what he’d gained by taking the Throne of the Spirit King. Second, she wasn’t pregnant _yet_. She’d just finished with her monthly flow and she’d not yet ovulated.

Time wasn’t on her side in this case. Nevertheless, wallowing in fright about the potential for a very-much unwanted pregnancy wouldn’t help her deal with the here-and now, nor with the patients that needed her. Her Division was about to be swamped with unexpected pregnancies and she’d best have her ‘game face’ on, as her predecessor had once told her. Being the Taichou, she didn’t have the luxury of falling apart at a time like this.

Unohana managed to suppress a tired snort. ‘Swamped’ was a bit of an understatement. In addition to her current caseload and duties, she had twelve pregnant Shinigami and Pluses to see as well as the reactions of twelve male Arrancar to gauge. Furthermore, there was always the chance that Harribel might not be the only pregnant female Hollow. Shoving aside her dread and self-pity, she pulled a brush and inkwell from her desk and took a sheaf of blank paper from the desk’s bottom drawer.

Her husband would have a very large report on his desk to read this evening, before he again forced himself on her. It was a good thing the Swarm seemed to have decided to forestall attacking today, providing the Seireitei with a much-needed break. Unohana and her staff would need the time to process this latest, Arrancar-related tangle and for her part, she had a very important note to write and send out to her pink-haired counterpart, on behalf of the woman sitting diligently next to Hana in the emergency ward.

She finished just as Iemura returned with the stack of papers, now neatly organized. He took the note and informed her that he’d contacted the first of the twelve, a member of the Kido Corps, through a mutual acquaintance and both she and her Master would be there within the next half hour. Conveniently, the woman’s report was on the top of the stack. Unohana watched him go and hoped that the Swarm would hold off on throwing themselves at the Seireitei for a few more days, if only so that she could get a grip on the paperwork this latest development would create.


	42. Give and Take

The first thing Starrk and Lilynette did upon hearing the news after their patrol was to rush towards the 4th Division at full speed, not caring in the least what anyone who might see them would think as the Primera raced through the city with Lilynette on his back. They barged through the 4th Division doors in a flurry, startling the lobby staff. Even if he’d been completely blind, Starrk would be able to track Hana by her reiatsu alone. The two proceeded to make a beeline for the room near the emergency ward that housed her unique energy signature. Wisely, the Division members they encountered ducked out of their way, but otherwise left them alone. Starrk had a good reputation with them, for an Arrancar; he had been to the medical Division enough times over the years to see to Jushiro. Because of that familiarity, they let him pass, knowing he was unlikely to cause trouble.

He managed to keep a tight grip on his reiatsu, even though it wanted to fly wildly about in his agitation. Starrk knew he couldn’t afford to let anxiety dictate his actions. An inadvertent power flare-up would not only harm everyone in the general vicinity, it would also likely bring Unohana’s wrath down upon the two. That, in turn, would get them forcibly removed. Nothing, other than possibly Kami-sama himself and even he was very reluctant to do so, got between Unohana and her patients. Nor did they dare disturb those patients if they knew what was good for them.

Lilynette’s teeth worried her lips, the top one bleeding already as she chewed on them in her distress. They hadn’t completely mended things with Hana yet, even though the situation was better now than it had been a week ago. The thought of losing her while there was still unresolved tension weighed on both their hearts. Starrk would never forgive himself if she perished while she held a grudge against him. Hell, he wouldn’t forgive himself if she perished, period.

They finally reached Hana’s room, having navigated the maze-like Division and its look-alike corridors. After a moment of cowardice for which he immediately berated himself, Starrk knocked lightly on the door before entering the room that held Hana’s prone form.

Hana was not alone, but he hadn’t expected her to be. Nanao sat next to her child, holding the young woman’s too-pale hand in her own. He was not even that surprised to see Harribel leaning against the wall opposite the door, taking up the strategic stance of a sentinel over Hana and her mother. Harribel was the only surviving Espada, other than himself, that truly cared for her fraccion and Starrk wasn’t particularly surprised to see she’d waited for Nanao to arrive, rather than leave an unconscious Hana by herself, unprotected. To Starrk’s point of view, Nanao hadn’t been there long… maybe five minutes at most, as the shock on the woman’s face hadn’t yet dissolved into tears. Another ten minutes and things might start getting a bit damp for his liking.

“Hana!”

Lilynette wasted no time and raced to the other girl’s side. Hana’s lack of a response made his stomach sink. She didn’t even stir when Lilynette took the girl’s hand in her own. Starrk listened to Harribel’s report with a heavy heart, but nothing could have prepared him for the utter horror that seized him when Harribel brought up the girl’s closest companions. While Hana had been badly hurt, it was Ajuga and Diaemus’ fate that shocked Starrk and Lilynette. The Swarm had never shown an interest in taking prisoners, Shinigami or Hollow, before, and now they had absconded with two of them for no reason he could discern.

Approaching more slowly, Starrk stopped beside the sleeping child. She seemed so fragile with the forming bruises and dressed in a white hospital gown tucked under white sheets. The bedding’s lack of color just washed out her features further, making her look that much more ill. Lilynette turned from the sight, overwhelmed and reeling from the news of Ajuga and Diaemus’s capture. His other half buried her head in his chest, sobbing, murmuring something too quiet to make out. Harribel excused herself at that point, giving them some privacy, for which he was thankful. It was one thing to express his feelings before his close-lipped fraccion; it was a completely different thing to do so in front of a fellow Espada.

“She’ll be alright,” Nanao told Lilynette in a voice that sounded surprisingly calm, resting a hand on Lilynette’s back in a gesture of comfort. Starrk got the feeling that the woman was reassuring herself as much as Lilynette. If Nanao could not hold her daughter, the next nearest ‘child’ would have to do.

After much snuffling and the wiping away of many tears, Lilynette finally composed herself and stepped away from both of them. Almost in a trance, he knelt down beside the bed himself and hesitantly took the hand that Nanao had been holding. The flesh was warm, and that offered him some relief, but she didn’t stir in the least.

“Hana, only you could bring me to my knees with nothing more than a few scrapes and bruises,” he sighed softly. “I know things have been… difficult between us lately, but you must know I care deeply for you, and that I could not stand the thought of losing you. I could not save your father and if I lost you too…”

He couldn’t finish, finding his throat too tight to choke the words out.

In the last fifteen years, he’d grown accustomed to the sounds of others… dinnertime conversations and arguments, the occasional squabbles between Grimmjow and Karin, Nanao’s motherly orders shouted out in the hope that the Estate wouldn’t succumb to the chaos that threatened any home where children resided. He’d come to count on the collective song made by their pack as well as the individual melodies created by each person under his and Jushiro’s roof. Those were his proof that he and Lilynette were no longer so abysmally alone. The loss of any one of them was almost too much to bear.

Never had the sound of silence bothered him so greatly.

“I don’t think I have ever seen you cry before, Starrk-ji.”

Blinking, Starrk realized there were a few tears rolling down his face as he wiped them away with his spare hand. The tears didn’t shock him as much as what Hana called him. That one little suffix, the tiny addition to his name meant the world to him and he’d felt its absence keenly. Even Hana’s weak smile meant nothing compared to that single syllable implying kinship.

“HANA!”

Starrk had just enough warning to scramble to the side, avoiding his smaller half’s elbows as Lilynette all but threw herself on the young woman.

“Ow,” Hana faintly complained, but returned Lilynette’s embrace. Her good-natured tone surprised him. It was strong for someone who had had the stuffing beaten out of her. She gave his hand a squeeze in place of a hug, as Lilynette was busy monopolizing her other arm and starting in on a fresh round of sniffling.

“Who was on patrol with you?” the little Arrancar demanded unexpectedly, finally pulling away and sitting on the edge of the bed.

“I don’t know his name and we don’t really have much reason to talk to each other. Ajuga-chan and Diaemus sent him off though, saying they were taking over the patrol,” Hana answered in a wavering voice. “You aren’t going to…”

Starrk let out a long breath and with his free hand, gestured at his small, seething, feminine counterpart before she could go into any gory details about what she planned on doing to the Numeros. Lilynette scowled at him, but backed down, letting Starrk take over.  
  


It made a depressing kind of sense now. None of the lower Numeros would dare risk angering or telling off an Espada’s offspring, lest it bring about the ire of the Espada as well. There was nothing they could do about it, Starrk thought, but what Hana revealed would explain the absence of not only an adult, but an experienced warrior during the encounter with the Swarm patrol. Ajuga and Diaemus were strong, but experience was also vitally important when engaging with an enemy of unknown strength.

He supposed that there would be time enough to assign blame for this mess later. Chiding Hana for their little trio’s recklessness was pointless as well. At present, he was simply grateful that Hana was still with them. Ajuga’s loss felt like a stab to the gut, but the possibility of never seeing Hana again was too much for him to contemplate.

“Nothing to do for it now, Hana, but wait and see if the Seventh and Karin can find them,” he finished.

Starrk shoved all of the terrifying possibilities to the farthest reaches of his mind and the warm hand holding his helped keep them at bay.

“Are you truly alright?” Lilynette asked, finally worming out of Hana’s one-armed embrace.

“Hurting, but I will recover,” Hana assured her with a wan smile.

She’d directed her words at Lilynette, but Hana’s eyes were on him. Unfortunately, now that Hana was awake and Lilynette had surrendered her place, Nanao wasted no time pulling her daughter into a tight hug, tears finally threatening at the corners of the woman’s eyes.

“Come on Lilynette, we should report in,” he said quietly.

“Did you two come here without reporting first Starrk-ji?” Hana demanded, looking at Starrk over her mother’s shoulder.

“Uhm,” Lilynette looked down and shuffled her feet nervously. “Maybe...”

Hana shook her head at them. The only people possibly more rule-oriented than Hana were her mother and Ulquiorra. Starrk got the feeling he’d committed some kind of breach of etiquette with the admission.

“Go, report in,” Hana said faintly as she shooed them away, removing her hand from his as she did so. “Before you get into trouble,” she added, mollifying him somewhat.

“It’s fine. It’s not like we have anything to report anyway,” Lilynette huffed, still looking a bit guilty.

“By not reporting in, you are technically ‘missing.’ Go check in before they launch a search party already,” Hana sighed in exasperation. “Besides,” she said with a smile, as if pointing out the obvious, “I’m not going anywhere. I will be right here when you get back.”

“Alright already, sheesh,” Lilynette grumbled. “I think you’re more of a stickler than Ulquiorra.”

Starrk had to agree with Hana, but for different reasons. Now that the young girl was awake, he could see that Nanao was having trouble keeping the waterworks under wraps. With everything that had happened over the last two weeks or so, Nanao was spread thin and he could tell she’d reached a breaking point. Sensing an impending maternal meltdown, Starrk decided now would be a good time to make a tactical retreat. Besides, it would be good to give the proud woman a moment with her daughter where she could act like the mother she was without an audience.

Yes, Starrk decided, a tactical retreat sounded better and better by the second.

The door barely closed behind them before he heard Nanao burst into tears. The panic he had felt over hearing about the attack on Hana had ebbed. They did need to report in, and by the time they had done that, Nanao would have gotten most of the messy emotions out of her system. The sooner they checked in, the sooner they could return to Hana’s side. She had made it clear she _wanted_ him there and that fact soothed him. Come hell or high water, the First Espada would be there. Clemency was a mostly foreign concept to Hollows and he wasn’t going to risk screwing up receiving Hana’s forgiveness. What he didn’t expect was for someone to be waiting for them in the lobby.

Harribel could have left for her own den, to spend a few hours sleeping or taking care of the matters her fraccion hadn’t completed before she left for her evening patrol. Instead, she waited in the main lobby, one arm wrapped around her waist. Her intent was to keep track of the massive reiatsu that comprised the combined First Espada, its binary force concentrated and banked in one room, hovering over one young Shinigami and her mother.

When the Espada had first acquired their respective ‘pets,’ she’d wondered why Starrk had taken Ise Nanao in when she obviously lacked the strength to withstand a Claim by someone of Starrk’s power. After a few months’ time revealed the woman’s pregnancy, Harribel had marvelled that Starrk and Lilynette would consider raising another’s child as their own. Starrk could have very easily snuffed it out and worked, like Aizen, to place his own seed in Nanao’s belly, provided she survived the process. He and Lilynette had shown an unexpected sort of self-discipline with regard to Hana and her mother that placed the two Shinigamis’ well-being before Starrk’s own reproductive interests. This was the thought that kept Harribel in her chair and gave her the courage to speak to the two when they emerged from the depths of the emergency ward later that afternoon.

“...go on back to the Estate, Lilynette, and give Nanao a bit of time with her daughter. I will report in for us,” Starrk said as he’d shuffled past the reception desk.

Lilynette trotted behind him and wiped at her eye with the back of her hand, the traces of tears visible to all who cared to look.

“Don’t bother cooking. Karin and Grimmjow aren’t up for supervising you and Jushiro and the new girl will need someone there tonight, so bring something home for everyone… and make sure it isn’t all sweets, like last time.”

“Okay, Starrk…” Lilynette sniffled, poised to return to the rest of their pack when Harribel stood and made her presence known to the two.

“Primera. Might I have a moment of your time?”

The two came to a halt, and then faced the dusky-skinned woman as she bowed to them in deference to their relative power.

“Harribel.”

“I would like to speak to the both of you about an important matter.”

She couldn’t help the urgency that seeped into her voice. There was a little less than an hour before she would have to check in for her patrol, and she still hadn’t had a chance to track down the Arrancar that was supposed to have accompanied Hana on her route. That was something she’d have to put on the back burner, at least until she solved her current dilemma.

“What is it?” Lilynette asked bluntly, staring up with her one eye at Harribel, who in turn looked at the tips of her boots.

“First, I would like to tender my apologies. Hana is my fraccion and she was wounded while under my supervision…”

Starrk stopped her, his gray eyes taking in her submissive posture before he spoke.

“That is not your fault, Tia. I am just relieved your girl found Hana-chan when she did.”

Harribel nodded at the acknowledgement, as well as the use of her given name. There were only three entities in the world that she allowed to do so. Starrk, due to their long association, Aizen, because of his greater status and, in the last few years, Toshiro, because of the small thrill she could feel up and down her spine when he uttered it in a lust-laden voice. It was good to know that they didn’t blame her for what had happened to Ajuga and Diaemus, or for Hana being in her present condition.

Starrk reached up and scratched the back of his neck while letting out a huge yawn. He had been patrolling for a long time as was and he was undoubtedly tired. Of course, she was hard-pressed to think of a time when Starrk _wasn’t_ tired, but at least it appeared as if she had his full attention.

“I should probably thank you and your pet for talking to Hana about what happened with her father. She’s back to calling me ‘Starrk-ji.’” he said softly, the faintest hint of a pleased smile on his face. Lilynette, in contrast, beamed at her.

“Yeah, we really appreciate it!”

Now Harribel felt her cheeks heat up. Her initial impulse to help steer Hana’s opinion of the First back to favourable waters had indeed been the right decision, if this was the result. Looking at the both of them from beneath her lowered eyelashes, she determined that there might not be a better time to ask for some much-needed help.

“What do you want to talk about?” Lilynette asked. She seemed both curious and impatient… or maybe ‘demanding’ would be a better description, Harribel decided.

“Would it be permissible to speak while we walk to the Palace so that you might let Kami know you’ve returned, while I receive my patrol route?” Her eyes flicked towards the receptionist, who seemed to be overly fascinated with the papers he was shuffling on his desk. Starrk didn’t react, but Lilynette followed her gaze and nodded, strands of her pale green hair fluttering around her face.

“Yeah, sure, no problem.”

She followed them out of the door, down the gravel walkway and past the 4th Division’s gate. There, Starrk dismissed Lilynette, who Harribel had supposed was on her way to see to the rest of their wounded pack’s welfare, if what she’d overheard was correct. Still, Lilynette left only after Starrk had promised to fill her in later. Once the slender girl was out of sight, Starrk shoved his hands into his pockets and began the trek towards the Palace with a sigh of resignation. The brief note of happiness when he’d mentioned that Hana had resumed calling him ‘Starrk-ji’ disappeared under a wave of depression as well as disgruntled resignation. She assumed the former was in response to Ajuga’s abduction, but had no explanation for the latter.

“I am getting too damned familiar with this walk.”

The irked way he muttered this made Harribel wonder if he’d been there for any reasons other than obtaining their patrol schedules from Kami. His entire posture reeked of a kind of sullenness that would have looked more appropriate on Grimmjow than on Starrk. Was living in such close proximity to the Sixth rubbing off on him? She certainly didn’t think his irritation was directed at her, per say, but she decided to word what she was about to ask in the most polite manner possible.

“What’s the issue, Tia? This about Hana, or something else?”

Well, she thought, it wasn’t as if Starrk wasn’t notorious for cutting through any gloss to get to the heart of the matter. Harribel kept her normally low voice just above a whisper, trusting that the First’s enhanced, Arrancar hearing would pick up on what she wanted to say over the sound of their footsteps on the paving stones. While there was little reason for prying ears to listen in on their conversation, experience had taught her it was best to keep the potential for others snooping to a minimum.

“A little of the first, but more the second, really. Grimmjow once came to me on behalf of Hana and his daughter. Today, I wanted to ask something similar of you.”

Starrk pulled a face at that.

“I don’t think I’ve got the energy to deal with one of your girls right now, Tia. I already have more women telling me what to do with myself than I can handle. A man can only take so much.”

Despite the annoyance in his voice, Harribel knew that he wouldn’t have traded his current life for anything. She was definitely more enamoured with the life she’d managed to carve out for herself here than the existence she’d endured in Hueco Mundo, even if their current ruler’s occasional actions left much to be desired. The blonde attempted to clear up the budding misunderstanding.

“I’m not asking you to take on any of them. I had hoped that you would accept my unborn child as your fraccion, as I have accepted Hana,” she finally said, in a voice that wasn’t quite as steady as she’d hoped it would be.

Starrk, eyes closed and frame swaying a little, came to a dead stop and, for a moment, Harribel thought he’d actually fallen asleep on his feet. Then she saw his gray eyes focus on her face and his mouth pop open. Astonishment fought briefly with lethargy for dominance as far as his expression went and eventually, astonishment won.

“You’re not kidding, are you?”

She shook her head again, the afternoon breeze playing with the tails of the long, golden hair she wore. The movement set the ornaments in them rattling against the fabric of her uniform.

“No, Unohana-san confirmed it while tending to Hana-chan. Like you, I’ve a patrol I cannot skip this evening, or I would be at Szayel’s Division right now, receiving his dubious attentions. I am concerned that Aizen will not take kindly to the prospect of losing a warrior of my calibre during this time of conflict and that he might order me to rid myself of…”

Her words trailed off as she tried to spit out her greatest fear, that Aizen would renege on the promise he’d once made to her, that he would scuttle the carefully nurtured plans she’d made over the long years. Neither of them said anything until Harribel’s shoulders slumped a little and she looked away, lest he read the worry in her eyes. Asking for assistance went against every instinct she had. It was as good as an admission of weakness before a superior and Starrk could take the request in any way he chose. Despite this, she had forged ahead, trying to get as much of her explanation as she could out while they resumed walking.

“I want my child to take his or her first breath. I don’t want Aizen to snuff that out in the name of defending the Seireitei. By his own laws, no one can Claim or raise a hand against another’s fraccion. Please, Primera… you’re the only one I feel can trust in this…”

The use of his formal title and her subservient stance conveyed the extent of her vulnerability and she hated it. It had been years since she’d stooped to begging for anything. The last man who had offered her help was now the one who potentially threatened the budding life within her. Dropping her normally implacable front had been incredibly hard to do. Swallowing her pride was difficult as well.

“There’s also Barragan Louisenbairn to consider. He’s already made one attempt on Ajuga…”

“Okay.”

Now it was her turn to pause, wondering if she’d heard him correctly. He came to a stop a few yards in front of her and regarded her wearily.

“Okay?”

Starrk looked as if someone had just loaded a pack of mud bricks onto his back and told him to carry them up the side a very steep mountain. His reply almost sounded like a complaint, if it didn’t also contain a large amount of disgust, as if her reasons for making the request ought not to exist.

“A lot of people have been asking for my help of late. Now you want me to take on a cub that isn’t even born yet. It’s a strange entreaty, Tia Harribel. You have to admit that much.”

“But… but you will do it?” she pressed, and her hand involuntarily went to her belly.

Starrk’s half-lidded eyes followed her fingers, as if weighing whether or not the additional responsibility would be worth the loss of sleep. He finally heaved a deep sigh and folded his arms across his chest, mirroring her posture with a speculative gaze.

“You took on Hana, and she is family to me. I suppose I can do the same for you, with one condition,” Starrk warned, holding up one finger.

“What would that be?”

The scruffy Arrancar then launched into the longest explanation she’d ever heard out of him and it floored her that he managed to stay awake long enough to deliver it.

“Soi Fon. Ggio Vega’s mate. Barragan Claimed him a couple of weeks ago and he can’t refresh the woman’s Claim now. She’s not strong enough for me to Claim either, not without killing her. She’s Taichou-Class too, so Aizen won’t let her live as a fraccion either. None of my pack wants Yammy getting his hands on her and, let’s be honest here, she’s too flat-chested to interest Nnoitra. Ulquiorra is already mated and you know him… he doesn’t like getting involved in this kind of thing. Both of Grimmjow’s Claim slots are full. No point in even considering Szayel, since he has two pets too. Nnoitra’s fraccion and his mate are already adopting the cub after he or she is born. Ggio apparently asked them to do it before Barragan Claimed him and dumped his mate on the roadside.”

“I will take your cub as a fraccion, but in return I want you to Claim Soi Fon once the baby is born. You do right by your girls and your current pet, so I figure you’ll do right by her too.”

Harribel stared at him with growing horror and no small amount of disbelief as what had to be the abbreviated story worked its way out of his mouth. She hadn’t heard any of this gossip and wondered why Hana hadn’t mentioned the situation when she’d visited in the week between returning home and yesterday’s abduction. The whole thing made no sense to her. Barragan’s actions were particularly bewildering. He’d spent all of those years chasing after her and her girls, to either keep them for his own uses or to hand out as breed-able trinkets to his most fervent supporters. The image of a particularly nasty, hammer-headed Adjuchas came to mind and she pushed it away before it sickened her. Yet he chose to toss away a female laden with one of his own fraccion’s cub in the hopes that their overlord would kill her once the Claim around her faded. Such an action went against everything a pack leader stood for and Harribel decided that the Second had finally lost what little mind he had left along with his worthless crown.

“Why would he do such a thing?”

Starrk tore his eyes away from her confused ones and stared up at the blue sky overhead, as if the situation puzzled him as well. He then ‘hmphed’ and scratched his side, turning on his heel and kept walking reluctantly towards Aizen’s lair. Harribel had to hurry and catch up with him.

“I don’t know, unless he was scared of losing the only follower he has left. I don’t think he could compete with a cub and a mate as far as Ggio’s loyalty was concerned, so he took them out of the running. Stupid move on his part.”

“But, Aizen-Kami wouldn’t kill her before...”

She had to stop when he gave her a pitying look and his lips thinned in displeasure.

“You ask that question right after begging me for protection for your own cub?”

Bitterness leavened his words and Harribel understood that Barragan’s former pet might not live to give birth, unless one of the other Espada took her in, courtesy of Aizen’s edicts. Starrk was also right in that the small Shinigami’s options were limited. Unless, of course, Harribel chose to meet the condition that Starrk set for her and filled her second Claim allotment with the ex-Taichou.

A decade prior, she wouldn’t have hesitated to give Starrk her assent. She would have done it, mostly to spite the Second and spit in his wrinkled, repugnant face. Toshiro’s opinion would have mattered little; he’d been young and his control over the vast reserves of power within him incomplete. Harribel had had a firm grip on him and had been clearly the one in control of both his person. As the undisputed leader of her household, it would have been her decision and hers alone.

Now she wondered how Toshiro would take it if she came home with one small, angry-looking woman in tow and told him that she was taking the woman to bed with her, with the intent to Claim her. Would he accept it, as he accepted the fact that she partook of her girls, or would he become jealous and angry, fearing that this Soi Fon would replace him? She would be saving the life of a new mother, protecting a vulnerable female in much the same way Hana had joined her household. Bringing in another pet to her pack might damage something she’d come to rely upon, and Harribel wanted nothing eating at its foundations, especially now that she was pregnant. Her answer stuck to her tongue, wanting to leave her lips and unable to do so.

“Karin-chan was going to ask you, but she’s got other things on her mind right now,” Starrk added, reaching up and scratching the thin goatee on his chin.

That was true enough. The human woman had been utterly shattered at hearing the Swarm had carried her daughter away. Harribel also suspected the gloom that clung to the First’s male half hadn’t just been for Hana. Ajuga had been dear to him as well, if the two girls’ stories around her dinner table were even half-true.

“I see.”

The Third knew it was a poor excuse for a response before she said it. Starrk took in the uncertainty emanating from her with regard to his bargain and shrugged in a ‘take it or leave it’ way.

“Give the woman a home, and I will do my best to see that Aizen, or Barragan since you brought him up too, thinks twice about messing with a fraccion of mine. My guess is that, aside from the Second himself, she was the strongest of his pack, even if she hated his guts. Trouble is, Tia, she can’t stay with me indefinitely.”

When she didn’t speak, torn between the desperate urge to say ‘yes’ and help a fellow woman in need and her worry about the repercussions with Toshiro if she did so, his usual indolent expression returned.

“Of course, you might want to let your pet know about it. Or should I call him your _mate_ now? You’re carrying his cub after all. You can give me your answer later, after you’ve talked it over with him. There is still time after all.”

She’d nodded in agreement, feeling some of the weight she’d felt lift from her shoulders. At least Starrk didn’t expect a reply right here and now. She was a little surprised he had known the source of her hesitation, but she should have expected it. Starrk was lazy, but he was also intelligent, as well as dangerously perceptive.

They said nothing during the rest of the walk to the Palace. Aizen had given her the route she was to patrol after listening to Starrk’s thoroughly bland report. Harribel hadn’t missed the subtle change in Starrk’s posture as he did so. His shoulders stiffened and while he appeared cloaked in boredom, she could detect a faint whiff of dislike as those gray eyes took in Aizen’s figure. The reason for the downturn in his attitude remained an enigma, as Starrk left immediately afterward, saying nothing to her on the way out. The male half of the First wasn’t the confrontational sort, nor was he the kind of Arrancar to protest something aloud that didn’t affect him directly. Ergo, whatever had caused it had probably come about both recently and somehow involved the First’s extensive pack. Maybe Kami’s unwillingness to spend an adequate amount of time searching for Ajuga and Diaemus had something to do with it. If that was it, Harribel was inclined to agree with the First.

Aizen, for his part, seemed preoccupied and spared little attention for them. Instead, he had his eyes glued to the contents of a thick report. Frowning down at the pages, he absently reached over and handed her a folded sheet of paper, which contained her route and the name of the Shinigami partnered with her that night. She’d bowed low before she left his presence, grateful that he’d paid her little heed.

He’d know about her condition soon enough, however. That thought added some speed to her heels as she all but fled the Palace grounds.

Starrk had been right. Harribel _hadn’t_ been thinking of Barragan when she’d asked him for his help in protecting her unborn cub.


	43. Epidemic's Darkness

Gin considered himself an expert on Unohana Retsu, particularly when it came to judging how her day had gone. He had fifteen years of experience doing so. He’d learned to decipher the subtle clues that anyone who wasn’t this familiar with her might miss to determine what she’d undergone during the course of the previous ten hours. Thus, when she dragged her tired, slumping body back to her rooms late on a day without a battle, he knew instantly that _something_ significant happened. Aizen’s patience had been thin as of late, so even though Unohana was clearly exhausted, Gin wasted no time stripping her and leading her to the bath to get her cleaned up. If anything, he hoped that the hot water would help ease her stress a little and get her to perk up a bit.

“Rough day?” he asked as his fingers unbraided her hair to let the long, black strands float freely in the water. Instead of helping, the heated bath appeared to sap the energy she had left, which made Gin fret about his original assessment of her fatigue.

“Yes. It has been a… shocking day, I’d say,” she confirmed before dunking under the water to get her hair wet as he finished undoing her braid. Her voice was soft and subdued, as if she had a great deal on her mind and Gin wondered what she’d run into to leave her this pensive.

Since they were pressed for time, he didn’t try to get more out of her. He would hear all about it when she reported whatever was going on to Aizen. That was one good thing about serving Unohana personally. There was little that he _didn’t_ know, as he was usually present in some capacity when Aizen and Unohana spoke. Not that there was much he could do with the information he gleaned. Still, just having it at his disposal was a form of power, even if it was a power he couldn’t currently use. One never knew when one’s knowledge might be the thing that saved one’s skin.

He only had time to half-prepare Unohana for her ‘bed date’ and pray that Aizen was in a good mood. The former Taichou didn’t think that was probable, but he could always hope. Of course, Aizen being in good spirits was no guarantee that things still wouldn’t end with him either being tortured or raped, the latter outcome being increasingly likely of late. Gin found himself substituting for Szayel every time the Espada managed to weasel his way out of Kami’s bed. Yammy’s screw-up with Byakuya had resulted in an unpleasant day for Gin, as torture always turned Aizen on and Yammy was not exactly a fitting bed partner for anyone with a modicum of taste. It had also been a few days before Aizen felt secure enough to reel in his other male toy, which meant the bastard used and abused Gin in the interim.

He had barely taken his place on his cushion after settling Unohana in the expected spot on her bed when Aizen waltzed in, a pleased smile on his face as he noticed them waiting for him. Gin held his breath as he inspected his wife, even though the pale-haired man already knew he would find at least a dozen imperfections.

“While I am impressed to see you in my bed on time, I must admit your lackluster presentation continues to displease me,” Aizen sighed in annoyance.

“It has been a long day and as such, my late arrival prevented Gin from fully completing his duties towards me. I have a number of things I need to report to you.”

Unohana spoke firmly, bringing her husband’s attention fully onto her and drawing it away from a grateful Gin.

“Do you?” Aizen inquired as he shed his robe and made himself comfortable at the foot of her bed. “Prepare her while she gives me her report,” he ordered, not even deigning to look in the direction of the cushion.

Gin immediately scrambled to where Unohana lay on her back with her legs slightly parted and huddled between them, carefully moving her limbs so that he could complete the task quickly. He mindlessly used his tongue to moisten her exposed folds and sex while listening intently to the conversation. She was completely dry when he began, a sign of her complete distaste for the man at the edge of her mattress. It was up to him to give her the appearance, however false, of being wet and ready for her ‘husband.’ Then again, given the alternative, if Gin had a choice on which of the two he had to pleasure orally, it would be her any day.

“Do tell me what was so intriguing that you decided to risk my displeasure by being late to bed?” Aizen asked, inspecting his fingernails.

Despite the fact she had a very talented mouth teasing the flesh between her legs, Unohana’s voice sounded as professional as ever as she answered her husband’s question.

“While performing a standard checkup on one of my Claimed, non-Shinigami patients, I discovered she was pregnant. The results came as a surprise, but…”

“Did Szayel not indicate that the difference in reiatsu levels would make such a conception impossible?” Aizen interrupted her with perhaps a little bit of glee, no doubt over potentially finding something with which he could use to ‘legally’ torment his favourite toy.

“We both knew it to be true at the time he said this. However, it seems that after years of living together, continually exposed to their Master’s reiatsu levels, most of those Claimed have adapted to the pressure that their Masters’ reiatsu places upon their bodies. To confirm my suspicions, I had select members of my Division acquire blood samples from every Claimed female, Plus and Shinigami alike, and, as a precaution, every female Arrancar. The results seem to favour the adaptation theory. If we use Tatsuki Lindocruz and Rangiku Matsumoto’s conceptions as the starting point, fourteen Claimed women are now with child. It would mean that the adaptation process truly began to take hold about a month and a half ago. In addition, of the heterosexual, sexually active Arrancar females we managed to test today, four came back positive and we still have more tests to conduct tomorrow.”

Gin briefly paused in his ministrations, shocked by the words of the woman below him. Judging by the shifting of the mattress as Aizen’s frame stiffened, Kami-sama was similarly stunned. The number of pregnancies was outlandish, especially for the Soul Society! It was rare enough that one or two women were pregnant, but to have this many at once was unheard of! What the hell was going on? Crossbreeding species should be _more_ difficult, not less. Aizen even said as much, as he’d created the Arrancar in the first place.

Unohana, bless her, had anticipated this, as she launched into an explanation for the sudden upswing in Shinigami/Arrancar fertility. Gin had to give her credit. He would certainly find it difficult to rattle off an accounting in such a business-like voice, with someone’s wriggling, wet tongue pressed deeply inside him. That she could do so was a testament to her ironclad self-control.

“Official studies that covered the potential for Shinigami and Hollow offspring did not exist prior to the War. The nobles that comprised the late Central 46 banned such research. The possibility of viable offspring from a Shinigami-Hollow match did not present itself until the human girls residing here conceived, and even then, we attributed the resulting children to their respective mothers’ human physiology. Humans, after all, are a ‘bridge’ of sorts between Hollows and Shinigami. An analogy would be that one can successfully mate a wolf to a dog, as well as a fox to a dog and get live pups from either pairing, but a similar pairing between a wolf and a fox would prove less successful.”

“When Kurotsuchi Nemu became pregnant we all knew she was a modified being created by the late Kurotsuchi, and thus, not a true ‘Shinigami’ in a genetic sense. I factored in any additional modifications Szayel may have conducted on her, in addition to the fertility drugs she took in the two years before the twins’ conception as possible reasons for that impregnation. If anything, Soi Fon’s pregnancy is the first confirmed, unadulterated, successful Shinigami-Hollow pairing. Matsumoto Rangiku conceived a scarce month later, approximately.”

Aizen said nothing to this and Unohana resumed her report while Gin tried to coax a little more saliva from his suddenly dry mouth. He settled on working his tongue in and out of Unohana’s passage, which had thankfully started to warm and grow slick. Her mention of Rangiku created pangs within him that he did his best to ignore in favour of preparing his mistress.

“To make certain that none of the Shinigami women would be mistreated as a result of their pregnant state, I personally interviewed each male Arrancar involved. Their responses were quite similar to one another, with one exception. The majority of them seemed pleased, with a few shocked by the news, and only one seemed angered by the diagnosis. As for the women, most seemed positive and a few were quite delighted about things once the information sank in, while the remaining three were horrified. I had to sedate one of those, as her reaction bordered on suicidal. As she was the pet of the lone Arrancar with a negative reaction to the pregnancy, I believe they may request a termination.”

Unohana paused here, clearly waiting for Aizen’s input on that particular situation. After all, Aizen had forbidden Barragan from ending Soi Fon’s pregnancy. Of course, Soi Fon was a Taichou-class Shinigami and the sire of the cub was one of the more powerful Arrancar not listed among the Espada.

“Which two?” Aizen questioned, eyes narrowing as he stared off into the room.

Gin didn’t recognize either name Unohana provided, even though Aizen seemed to know the Arrancar in question. There was no hesitation when Aizen ordered her to rid the couple of the unwanted pregnancy. What shocked Gin was that he didn’t phrase it as giving her permission to do so if the request came in, but as an order she should carry out without undue delay. Unohana didn’t let any emotion show over what she thought of such an order, and simply continued with her report.

“As per your directions, I sent each couple to Szayel for cataloguing. I’ve little doubt his lab was even busier than my Division today as a result. He will probably have a full report for you about how far along each Shinigami pregnancy is, as well as their expected due dates by tomorrow evening. I believe he’ll also have a report on the Hollow pregnancies by the following evening or the evening after that, depending on how many more cases we discover tomorrow. It will take some time to run the tests and fill out the reports and we’ve yet to secure the compliance of all the female Arrancar as far as the tests go. My own comprehensive summary of the situation, as well as the data on each woman’s blood work, should be ready at roughly the same time… provided I don’t have to pull any of my Division members away to deal with any battle-related injuries.”

“I see,” Aizen said and finally turned to smile at his wife. “Do you expect to uncover any other pregnancies in the near future?” he asked, perhaps a bit too intently.

Gin knew what Aizen was really getting at. Judging by the way that Unohana’s body tensed beneath his mouth, she did as well. If the Claimed population had begun to adjust, with successful pregnancies the result, would her body not also do the same? Would Aizen finally get the heir he wanted from her?

“I expect to find more pregnancies among the female Arrancar tomorrow, and it is entirely plausible that more Shinigami women will conceive as they ovulate in conjunction with an adjustment to their partners’ power,” she confirmed. “Those couples who are farther apart in reiatsu will take longer to conceive, of course. Given what I have observed of the reiatsu levels involved today.” Unohana paused here, turning her head away from her husband and breaking eye contact. “My own body should adjust by the end of the year, perhaps early next year, provided you keep draining your reiatsu,” she finished softly.

Gin’s mouth and tongue froze at this point, fear clenching at his heart at the revelation. If Aizen finally managed to plant a child in Unohana, and if she successfully gave birth, he would have no further use for her, other than to warm his bed when he desired it. It also meant he would have even less reason to keep Gin around to care for her. He doubted Aizen would kill him. After all, he had promised not to and Aizen, for all his sadistic tendencies, had a penchant for keeping his word. No, Gin would simply end up as one of Aizen’s playthings, in an even greater capacity than he was now. Aizen might even make Gin his own personal servant and Gin did not relish such an outcome.

“I did not tell you to stop, Gin,” Aizen intoned dangerously.

Grimacing, Gin set to work again, already feeling the phantom pains from the punishment he knew would be coming after Aizen finished with Unohana. Reluctantly, he let his tongue toy with Unohana’s clitoris, a last-ditch effort to make her wet enough for Aizen’s unwanted penetration. The only indication he had that the act worked was a faint trembling of the woman’s stomach muscles and the fluttering of her opening when he went back to thrusting his tongue into her to try to spread out the trickle of fluid that resulted. Aizen had never allowed Gin to bring her to any sort of climax, since the tyrant’s joining with Unohana had only one purpose.

“If such is indeed true, then I suppose exposing you to more of my reiatsu would speed things up. From now on, I will attend to you in the morning as well as the evening, prior to taking breakfast together.” Aizen uttered this, pleased with her report and no doubt wanting to hurry up his wife’s acclimatization to his monstrous levels of energy. “You, Gin, had best make sure my darling wife is ready for me,” he added.

The servant couldn’t see the expression on his master’s face, but it didn’t matter. It wasn’t hard to picture the twisted smirk plastered on Aizen’s face.

“As you wish,” Unohana said, for there was nothing else she could say that wouldn’t land one, or both of them in trouble. Gin didn’t answer, as his mouth and tongue were busy with their appointed task.

Aizen’s foot suddenly connected with Gin’s shoulder, shattering the bone and sending the too-thin servant flying from the bed and away from Unohana. A sharp, pained cry escaped him as he crashed into the wall, striking the solid surface hard enough to crack the plaster. He crumpled to the floor and curled in on himself almost involuntarily, making sure to keep his weight off his damaged shoulder. His wrist hurt as well and he suspected that he’d damaged it when he’d come to rest on the tiles, with his arm breaking his fall.

The too-familiar sound of flesh-on-flesh accosted his ears alongside the sound of his own blood rushing in his ears and his pain-filled pants. Thankfully, Aizen didn’t take long to finish with his wife. He never did. Unlike those others unfortunate enough to attract Aizen’s attentions, Unohana was only under Aizen to provide him with a child, not because Aizen actually desired her. Gin often wondered why Aizen didn’t partake of his wife for pleasure. It wasn’t as if Unohana was unattractive. Instead, Aizen seemed to prefer boyish, flat-chested females, such as the late Hinamori, or lithe, not overly muscled males such as himself or Szayel.

Maybe that was just as well, Gin decided with the part of his mind that wasn’t pain-fogged. The idea of Unohana having to deal with the things that went on in that ‘playroom’ of his nauseated the servant.

As it was, a dazed Gin failed to notice that Aizen had gotten to his feet and left, until Unohana’s soothing healing Kido began to deal with his injuries.

“S’rry,” he apologized, his voice thick with remorse and hurt. Unohana ‘shushed’ him.

“It is not your fault Gin. Let me see to this first before we pay a visit to Orihime-san so she can fix your shoulder.”

Either Aizen was in a very good mood, or Unohana had offered him something in exchange for permission to heal her attendant. Gin hoped it wasn’t anything too degrading. When he tried to ask, she again indicated that he ought to simply accept it and that they were going to see Orihime. Therefore, he stayed as quiet as he could and cursed under his breath when she wrapped his shoulder the best she could.

His earlier assessment of this latest round of injuries had been accurate; two of the bones in his left wrist had snapped. The joint had never been as strong as it once was, not since the day Aizen broke it as punishment using Shinso. Unohana set the bones and bound his wrist tightly. Once he was somewhat ready to travel, she helped him to his feet and finally pulled a yukata around her body to cover her nakedness. With his shoulder and wrist compromised, she had to help him into his robe, leaving his bound arm under the sleeves and securing the belt for him.

The trip to Orihime’s house was less than pleasant, each step jarring his shoulder painfully. His broken wrist throbbed in time with his heartbeat as well as his footsteps. Unfortunately, there was no one home when the two arrived. Sighing, Unohana remained silent for a moment before leading him down the streets of the First District towards a different house. Gin figured she’d decided to track the human woman via her reiatsu. This time the knock on the door bore fruit. Tesra answered, pulling the door halfway open, obviously surprised to see them. Gin deduced that this was Nnoitra’s house.

“Is Orihime-san here?” Unohana asked pleasantly, her tone a contrast to the bedraggled image the two on the Fifth’s porch conveyed.

“Yes,” Tesra answered hesitantly, not entirely sure what to make of their abrupt appearance, yet not wanting to be rude to Kami’s wife.

“I need to see her please. Can you let her know that I am here?” Unohana requested with that smile that made even the toughest men scuttle for their hospital beds, despite having vehemently insisted they were fine. Gin supposed he could add Tesra to their number, as the Arrancar paled and stepped back inside.

Tesra left the door open, for it would be rude to close it on a superior’s spouse, and didn’t go far into the house. In fact, Gin could hear several women talking in low tones, including Rangiku. His heart froze at the sound of her voice. When was the last time he’d spoken to her? He couldn’t remember. He had seen her over the years of course, during various meeting and such, but Aizen had seen to it that he had neither permission nor the opportunity to say anything to her.

Orihime came to the door, her eyes red and puffy from crying over the loss of her son. She was probably here for some much-needed support from her friends. The human woman took one look at him and gasped, and then promptly shovelled her needs to the side. With the odd bit of sniffling here and there, she ordered them to come in so she could see to his injuries.

For a brief moment, he wavered, for he didn’t want Rangiku to see him like this, but the longing to speak to his childhood friend easily overcame any misgivings he had. There was another woman with Orihime and Rangiku, and he guessed that it was the third human, Tatsuki. Of course, he told himself, Tesra’s mate would likely have permission to be here. All conversation ceased as they entered the room and he forced himself to look into a pair of shocked, pale blue eyes.

“Gin?” Rangiku breathed softly.

“Hiya Ran,” he began, but never had the chance to finish the greeting. She had him in her embrace before he even realized she had moved. It killed his shoulder when she squeezed him, but he didn’t care. He returned the hug as best he could with one hand.

_Screw the pain_ , he thought. He could live with it so long as he could continue to hold her for a few precious moments.

“Gin… you have no idea how much I have missed you,” she whispered tearfully.

“S’rry ‘bout tha’,” he murmured softly, discomfort lacing his voice despite his efforts to hide it.

Rangiku didn’t miss it though, for she took a step back. Her eyes went to the bindings around his shoulder and wrist. She didn’t ask what happened as the answer was painfully obvious.

“Come sit down Gin-san, so I can take care of that,” Orihime sternly interrupted, her throat only slightly hoarse from hours of crying. That cut into any reply he might have made.

Gin did as instructed, and couldn’t help but to sigh in relief as the gold light from Orihime’s shield infused his body with some badly-needed peace and comfort. It didn’t take her long at all to heal the broken bones, and after a quick checkup from Unohana, he shrugged his wrist and shoulder from the bindings. For the first time in months, he was completely free of pain and his wrist felt as if it had never been shattered in the first place. Feeling much better, Gin had a moment to flex his arms and wriggle his fingers before Rangiku was on him again, attempting to smother him with her cleavage as she hugged him, this time with a little more abandon than before.

“Has Nnoitra been taking care of you?” he asked worriedly and a bit breathlessly thanks to Rangiku’s enthusiasm. Gin tried to commit the feeling of her warm body pressed against his and her heady scent to memory. Who knew when the next time he could hold her like this would be? Rangiku showed no outwards signs of mistreatment that he could see, but he knew all too well that looks could deceive. If he found out Nnoitra had abused her he would find a way to kill the Arrancar and the consequences be damned.

“I am better off than some of the others,” she answered, with only a little reluctance.

There was no need to list who ‘some of the others’ were. Unohana had shared her frustration over Yammy’s treatment of Byakuya with him, even if patient confidentiality prevented her from divulging the ugly details. Gin could guess what had happened, however. He was well aware of what kind of violence the Tenth dished out. He had been the brute’s superior at one time, after all. Gin was surprised Byakuya was still in one piece. Yammy had a habit of smashing his toys when he got upset… and it didn’t take much to upset the thuggish Arrancar. The only creature that _hadn’t_ suffered at the hands of Yammy Llargo had been the pint-sized Adjuchas that followed the cretin around, wagging its tail and begging for a game of ‘toss the bone to the dog.’ The rest of creation was fair game for the ill-tempered Espada.

_How many subordinates did we go through again during the build-up to the War?_ he wondered, trying to recall the exact body count for which Yammy had been responsible. _I lost track after the first dozen or so._

“Matsumoto-san…” Tesra coughed nervously and he felt her shift and sigh in frustration.

“Damn jealous bugger…” Rangiku cursed under her breath before finally letting Gin go and stepping away.

Gin understood. If Yammy was a violent, mentally defective goon, Nnoitra was a jealous, misogynistic, overcompensating bully with an insecure streak a mile wide. As much as he wanted to keep holding her, he didn’t want to get her in trouble either. Still, it was hard not to cling when all he wanted was a few more seconds with her.

“How is Hana-chan doing?” Tatsuki asked, trying to fill in the awkward silence that followed.

“She is recovering well,” Unohana replied truthfully. “She’s at home, resting.”

“That’s a relief at least. I am sorry I wasn’t at the 4th Division to heal her injuries. I should have…” Orihime looked down at her clasped hands nervously, tears once more threatening the corners of her already-reddened eyes.

“You have your own worries, and Hana’s wounds, while not the prettiest, were hardly fatal or disabling. She will likely be released to return to light duty tomorrow,” Unohana informed the distraught human woman gently, trying to assuage any guilt the human woman might feel.

Gin couldn’t blame Orihime for hovering on the edge of a nervous breakdown. The Swarm had taken her son and there was a good chance the boy was gone for good. While the years of separation from Shinso had been horrible enough, at least Gin had known his Zanpakuto was intact and safe. Orihime didn’t even have that little comfort. Then there was Ajuga’s loss to consider, a double-blow to the soft-hearted healer. Overall, it was an emotional nightmare Gin wouldn’t wish on anyone.

“Can you stay long?”

The hope with which Rangiku asked this almost made him wince, mostly because the answer he had to give her would dash it.

“’M‘fraid not,” Gin sighed unhappily.

“Aizen is in a particular mood tonight. It is best not to tarry and be late for dinner,” Unohana added, the deftly-worded excuse rolling off her tongue with practiced ease.

_Well, that’s an understatement,_ Gin thought grimly. The conversation that he and Unohana interrupted had been depressing, but at least it _was_ a conversation. He would sooner sit here and let Rangiku sob all over him, holding her safe in his arms, than return to the drudgery, slavery, rape and torture that was his hourly lot at the Palace. Furthermore, he knew how Aizen’s slippery mind worked. Their ruler would deem the breaking of Gin’s body this evening as a mere ‘accident’ that occurred while removing him from the bed. Now that his mind wasn’t fogged with pain, Gin understood that the only reason Aizen had given Unohana permission to take him to Orihime was so that he would be in good enough health to receive his punishment for his haphazard work in preparing Kami’s wife. Worse, he’d now have to perform such duties twice a day from tomorrow morning onward.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Gin acknowledged tiredly, giving up on hiding his depression about what he knew would be waiting for him once they made it back to the Palace.

Rangiku pulled him into another long hug. Whatever protest Tesra seemed about to make about it fizzled when his mate placed her hand on his shoulder and gave him a soulful look. Nnoitra’s fraccion took in her expression and sighed. Then he left them to their embrace, even though it was clear the Arrancar was nervous about the entire situation.

If Gin could have one wish, it would be for time to stop completely and allow him to remain in the circle of Rangiku’s arms. The universe bloody well _owed_ him that much, he thought with some despair.

Time, unfortunately, turned a deaf ear. A hand settled on his own shoulder and he looked away from the top of Rangiku’s head to see a sympathetic expression on Unohana’s face. Unfortunately, her demeanour also suggested they had best be going. Reluctantly, he stepped away from his friend, doing his best to ignore the tears that pooled at the corners of her eyes. They were a dark reminder of yet another promise he’d failed to keep.

“I’ll see ya around,” he said as farewell, trying to summon up some of his old cheekiness to cover the lump he could feel forming in his throat.

“Yeah,” she agreed, wiping away a tear with the heel of her hand. One corner of her mouth rose in a half-smile. Gin fancied that if he stared at it long enough, he’d be able to hold the picture of her in his mind. Maybe it would help him get through whatever Aizen had planned for him later.

He forced himself to turn around and walk out the door, following in Unohana’s wake back to the Palace that served as his overly-opulent prison. They said nothing to one another on the way. Really, Gin considered, what could either of them say?

Dinner was a solemn, apprehensive affair for the both of them. Interestingly, the only one who seemed to be in good spirits was Aizen. In fact, the usurper’s cheer was such that Gin’s punishment after the meal consisted of a harsh caning, using the abused servant’s own sheathed Zanpakuto as the instrument, and nothing more. That surprised him. He’d expected something far worse in the way of discipline, such as ending up a raw, bloody mess beneath the tyrant, or at least, with a mouthful of heated flesh. Torture always whetted Aizen’s libido, but it appeared that the bastard had already picked out one of the hollow-eyed and mostly-broken serving girls to use as a means of quenching his lust after Gin’s beating.

The pale-haired man pondered whether or not he ought to hate himself for being grateful that it was someone else, and not him, taking the abuse in Aizen’s suite that evening. He also wondered at what point he’d come to think of the beating he’d received as a ‘light’ round of discipline.

Shinso crooned to him after he staggered back to Unohana’s rooms. Gin curled up in his cubby with the flimsy blanket wrapped around him, doing everything to keep his weight off his aching backside. He couldn’t help cradling his Zanpakuto against his chest, afraid Aizen would take Shinso away again for some paltry ‘error.’ In his inner world, the little fox was in his lap, nestled against him, trying to convey how sorry he was for hurting his partner while offering what comfort he could. Gin absently stroked the animal’s snow-white fur. The fault was not with Shinso and he didn’t blame his Zanpakuto in the least for the painful, red stripes forming quickly across his back. Instead, he allowed himself the brief luxury of thinking about his earlier encounter with Rangiku.

She had actually looked good, all things considered, and still as beautiful as he remembered. He’d overheard Unohana inform Aizen of her pregnancy several weeks ago, but from what he’d seen that evening, the former Fukutaichou had just begun to show and he wished he‘d had the time and the nerve to ask her about it. Most of the pain he had seen in the group was the result of the loss of the children, and in that, he shared their grief. The thought of never seeing Ajuga again was devastating on a number of different levels. The child, arguably an Arrancar teen now, was often the only highlight to his week, on the days she decided to take the risk and sneak in for a quick visit. Unwittingly, the girl had helped him retain his sanity, giving him a small taste of both smuggled food and desperately-needed cheer.

Sleep eluded him. His back was awash in agony and his thoughts allowed him no peace. Judging by the sound of Unohana’s breathing, she wasn’t asleep yet either. No doubt, her own mind was awhirl with what she had learned today. So many women pregnant… and all signs indicated that she might be joining their ranks soon. For a long moment, Gin even contemplated slipping her the herbs to keep her barren again, but he quickly tossed that idea aside.

Aizen was already onto that game, and this time his punishment might not be a simple shattered wrist, but the loss of a hand. The bastard might even use Shinso to do it. He could never allow that to happen to his Zanpakuto, nor to Unohana. Aizen had promised Gin that he would punish her as well if it happened again, and he couldn’t bear to see the only light in his miserable existence hurt for something he’d done. Nor would he put her in a position where she would be the one forced to maim him. She in turn, to protect the lives of the Shinigami in her Division, would have to obey the order to carve him up with no hesitation. She might deeply regret having to do so, but she wouldn’t hesitate.

“Gin, do you want me to help you sleep?”

The whispered words, seeping out of the darkness, made him jump in alarm. That aggravated the pain in his back and he let out a sharp hiss. Gin scrabbled his way out of his inner world, crawling back to his usual, dismal reality.

“If ya wanna,” he responded, getting his heartbeat under control. Aizen wouldn’t permit her to heal any of the welts decorating the flesh Orihime had newly healed, but there was no rule about using Kido to give him a brief respite from consciousness. He had a feeling that tomorrow would be a long day. His chores, in particular, would be difficult to complete, with the added need to prepare her for another round with Aizen in the morning and he could use all the rest he could get. He’d be a fool to turn down the offer.

The bed sheets rustled and Gin heard the padding of Unohana’s bare feet as she approached him. Then she gently placed her hand on her forehead. A wave of relaxation and warmth washed over him as her reiatsu infused his body, followed by blessed darkness and peace. He would be stiff and sore in the morning, but at least he would have several hours of dreamless sleep in which to let his mind and body rest.


	44. Prisoner's Dilemma

Staring up at the crystalline structure of the Science and Research Division, its faceted dome glittering in the cool morning sunshine, Tia Harribel found it difficult to believe that a Hollow with Szayelapporo Grantz’s reputation had built it. Even though she’d been within its walls a number of times over the years and had grown used to seeing it against the skyline of the Seireitei’s whitewashed buildings and red-clay tiled roofs, the edifice never failed to impress her. It was such a far cry from the minimalist, nearly windowless architecture of Las Noches, with its tall, cylindrical pillars and slab-like planes rising from the endless white sands. It was also much brighter and far more ‘open’ than his last lair, a dangerous subterranean place she’d warned her girls to never set foot if they valued their freedom, their limbs or their sanity.

_This is foolish. Grimmjow_ _’_ _s mate is Szayel_ _’_ _s Mistress and Kami_ _’_ _s wife would not lie about the restrictions Karin placed upon him,_ Harribel silently scolded herself.

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been here on business before. This time, however, the business was personal in nature and try as she might, she couldn’t keep her heart from pounding as she carefully walked up to the doors and reached for the handle.

Then she had to use Sonido to take a step back before the sudden outward motion of the wide glass doors knocked her off her feet, or more accurately, shattered when they came into contact with her frame. Coming to a stop a few yards away, Harribel turned to see one of the male Numeros burst through them. He tugged a pretty, black-haired female Shin9igami with an armband designating her as a 3rd Division officer behind him. For some reason, in build and in coloring, he reminded Harribel of one of Barragan’s long-dead fraccion, Findorr Calius, the one with the crab’s claw and the pretty-boy face. They skidded to a stop on the gravel walkway as the Division’s doors clattered shut behind them. The Numeros spun around, catching his companion around the waist with one arm. He proceeded to drop a deep, feverish kiss on the girl, releasing her hand only to draw her against him sharply. In turn, the flushed Shinigami reached up and ran her fingers through the male’s long, blonde hair, effectively deepening their little public display of affection.

While Harribel wasn’t near enough to hear whatever he subsequently murmured to her, it was obvious that she was his pet; the Claim around her _glowed_ , evidence of its frequent and enthusiastic refreshment. When the hand around her waist trailed to rest on the Shinigami’s lower abdomen, the reason for his reaction became clear. The Third took a few judicious steps back, not wanting to have to deal with an overly protective, instinct-driven male in such a state. As it turned out, she needn’t have bothered. The Numeros, whose name she couldn’t recall, reached down and scooped his pet up, bearing her away in blur. She had no doubts about what those two would be doing once they managed to obtain some privacy and a horizontal surface.

_Scratch that_ , she realized. _They might just settle for something vertical and out of the way._

The two had been completely oblivious to her presence, which surprised her. Such a lapse in attention to one’s surroundings could very well prove fatal in Hueco Mundo. Harribel considered it another example of how the Arrancar as a whole, even those created to replace the ones Aizen had lost during the Winter War, had let themselves become a bit complacent in this new world of abundance. Then again, it was a relief to see another couple getting along instead of the dismal master/slave relationship most Arrancar had originally adopted with their pets.

Carefully stepping back onto the walkway, she cast one last bemused look in the direction in which the lower-ranking Numeros and his pet had disappeared and then reached for the door handle again. Thankfully, no more ardent lovers tried to trample her and she walked into Szayel’s den a bit more relaxed than she’d initially expected to be.

The receptionist, a mousey young man with wide eyes, his hair done up into a pig tail on top of his head and a lab coat one size too large for his short, thin frame looked up at her and immediately stood a little straighter. Harribel decided to have mercy on the Shinigami. He’d probably been overwhelmed by the large number of defensive male Arrancar hovering over their now pregnant mates since yesterday. She folded her arms on the counter that separated the waiting room from the on-duty desk, peering down at him.

“I’ve a referral to see the Seventh. Please inform him that I’m here.”

“Y…yes, Sir… uhm, I mean, Ma’am…ow…” he stuttered and then bowed while trying to operate the intercom system. Doing two things at once was apparently a foreign concept for the Shinigami, because he managed to get himself tangled up in at least two power cords in the attempt.

“Abarai…oof… san, please come to the reception area for another guest escort,” the little man said, mouthing the words into the microphone. Then he let go of the button and bowed again, which hindered his efforts at extracting his body from the snake-like wires. As unintentionally entertaining as it was to watch him flail about, Harribel decided that she’d be better off taking a seat. Finding a comfortable spot, she reached up and rubbed her forehead.

For some reason, she wished she’d had the nerve to wait until evening to come here, until Toshiro was free of his Division’s work for the day. Harribel had fully intended to inform him of Unohana’s findings the previous evening, after she returned from her patrol route. Unfortunately, he’d come home well after midnight with purple smudges beneath his eyes and a grim set to his mouth. She’d sent Apache with him and his hand-selected party of 3rd Division searchers to help investigate the scene of Ajuga and Diaemus’ kidnapping. They’d found nothing, thanks to the Swarm’s too-small reiatsu signatures. The disturbed earth was easy to spot, but the General and his bugs had collapsed the tunnels they’d used to make their subterranean escape behind them, obliterating their trail. Other than some fur, feathers and blood samples, there was no trace left of the children and no way of going after them. Sung Sun and Mila Rose had co99nsoled a sniffling, teary-eyed Apache upon their return to the den and Toshiro had given Harribel a bleak look and shook his head. She hadn’t stopped him as he retreated to his room to collapse on his bed in an exhausted heap. The words she’d wanted to speak, to tell him of both his impending fatherhood and about Starrk’s request regarding Soi Fon, remained unspoken in the face of the effect that Ajuga’s loss and Hana’s injuries had on her household.

Harribel couldn’t see the normally reserved Taichou reacting in the same way as the Arrancar that had nearly collided with her. Unbridled enthusiasm and public lip-locks just weren’t his style. In truth, she had no idea how he would react. However, he’d been _very_ willing to help her achieve her goal, if his performance with her the last two times she’d had him were any indication. She tilted her head back and thought back to an especially exquisite thing he’d done the other night with his tongue when she heard approaching footsteps. Opening her eyes, she spotted Abarai walking through a set of double doors, intent on the reception desk. Neither of the twins was with him and she wondered where the children were.

“Tsubokura-san, what is…?” he began and then faltered when she stood up. The receptionist glanced at Szayel’s pet and gestured towards her expectantly.

“The Third Espada is here to see Grantz-sama.”

The redhead, who appeared to be trying to look at anything in the room _but_ her, nodded and took a clipboard from the small, nervous Shinigami behind the counter. Keeping his eyes averted, he turned and made for the door he’d just come from.

“Follow me, please.”

They didn’t have far to go, mercifully. As pretty as the building was on the outside, the interior was labyrinthine. Harribel could easily admit that without a staff member to guide her to the right room, she might very well end up lost, walking for days through identical grey and white corridors in search of an exit. _This_ was the sort of thing she could see Szayel designing, letting the architecture befuddle any intruders and allowing the Espada to pick them off at his leisure.

“Where are your Master’s children?”

The question came out before she’d really had much of a chance to think before she spoke. He gave her a narrow-eyed, assessing look and Harribel kicked herself for her lapse in judgment. She’d become so used to the sight of the tall young man with at least one child in tow that their absence surprised her. He’d taken her innocent inquiry as something other than what it was. If this had been Hueco Mundo, Abarai might have met her question with preemptive violence to protect the cubs. As it was, she could see his shoulders tense before he answered, not bothering to turn around.

“Safe. Abisara is busy with one of his father’s projects and his sister is crying her eyes out over Ajuga-chan. Both are presently under armed guard by the old 12th Division’s former seated officers while I complete my afternoon duties.”

The warning couldn’t be any plainer. Moreover, the look on his face was similar to the one he’d given her a year ago, when she’d told him to stand down and put away his Bankai after the attack on Szayel’s little girl. Despite the fact that he was thoroughly Claimed and supposedly under Szayel’s control, she felt a tiny prickle of fear as she stared at the long red tail of hair swishing back and forth in front of her. It would be, she decided, a good thing to get this over with quickly and retreat before she could make any more mistakes while in another Espada’s den.

Before Harribel could give into the sudden impulse to drop back a few paces and give the twins’ guardian a little space, they arrived at a set of doors marked ‘Examination Room 3’ and Abarai pounded on them with his fist. A minute later, Szayel’s mate, her dark hair back in its customary braid and a faint frown on her face, poked her head out of the room.

“Yes, Renji?”

The redhead stepped aside, gestured to the blonde behind him and Harribel took a step forward.

“I’m here to see Szayel.”

Nemu paused, and then ducked back into the room briefly before the door swung open enough for a body to walk through. However, the Seventh’s mate promptly filled it, blocking the way until she apparently got a better answer from the Third. If Harribel didn’t know any better, she would have labeled the green-eyed woman’s posture as ‘overly protective.’

“He’s inside. May I inquire…?”

“Kami’s wife sent me,” Harribel replied quietly, the explanation hanging in the air for a few seconds before she saw both Nemu’s and, to a greater extent, Abarai’s eyes get much bigger as what the reference implied set it. Szayel’s mate retreated and the door opened all of the way, allowing her to peer into the examination room.

She’d been here once before, to find Ajuga and inadvertently coming in on the tail end of the hybrid children’s combined checkup. Nemu ushered her in quietly, then said a few words to Abarai, who remained outside. The redhead’s voice was just a little louder than Nemu’s and she caught the words ‘still crying’ and ‘the boy needs a break. I’ll make him take one,’ before he disappeared. Nemu firmly shut and locked the door after him and then turned around.

“Szayel-sama…” she began before a very tired voice, coming from behind the screen of a computer console interrupted her.

“I’ll be just a moment, Nemu-chan. I just have to finish the summary for Lloydght’s mate’s case and attach the images.”

Harribel could hear the sounds of someone’s fingers dancing over a keyboard, the rapid-fire clicking sounds echoing like staccato shots through the large room. Tentatively, she took a few steps closer to the empty exam table and the bank of equipment, peering around them until the other Espada came into sight.

She’d seen Szayel a day-and-a-half ago in Kami’s throne room, after letting Hana report what had happened to Ajuga and Diaemus to Aizen. He’d seemed fatigued and very nervous then, but that was understandable, given Aizen’s interest and transgressions against the Seventh. Now he looked positively awful, his eyes shadowed and haunted and exhaustion radiating from every pore. His posture was that of a man dead on his feet and overdue for a date with his pillow. Yet he kept working, finishing up what Harribel suspected was the pregnancy write-up for the couple she saw leaving the Science and Research Division earlier. One of the printers began spitting out paper and Szayel looked up from the monitor, directly at her, before glancing at his mate.

He’d probably taken the entire twenty-four hour period Aizen had allotted to find the missing children, to no avail, as his expression was nearly identical to the one Toshiro had brought home, a mixture of low energy, frustration and profound unhappiness. Still, when he addressed her, she could see his lips twitch up in the faintest of smiles before it disappeared.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit, Harribel-san?” he asked, as Nemu moved to pick up and collate the triplicate reports. “I’m afraid I’ve no good news about Ajuga’s whereabouts.”

“To be honest, as much as I would love to know if you’ve discovered their whereabouts, Ajuga isn’t why I’m here,” she informed him quietly.

One pink eyebrow rose and he stood up slowly. As Nemu finished putting the reports together, Szayel turned to his mate and pointed with his chin to what appeared to be three large piles of paper on one of the long steel tables, situated off to the side of the room.

“Please put those with the others and let’s pray nothing else shows up today,” he told his mate and she swiftly moved to add the latest batch to the report stack.

“Others?”

Harribel had only seen the one couple leaving, but it was late in the afternoon. Had he seen others that day as well?

“Why yes…there seems to be a rash of pregnancies amongst the Claimed Shinigami population, with at least a dozen occurring in the last month-and-a-half. It’s going to be a very busy year, I fear. Mercifully, most of them are due in late summer, before the Swarm begins sending their initial scouting parties. We hope to have a solution to the Swarm attacks by then.”

Szayel grimaced and then looked at Nemu curiously, as if he’d picked up something from her via his Claim on the quiet assistant. She turned around and motioned towards Harribel.

“Szayel-sama, Unohana-Taichou has referred her to you.”

A thick silence descended upon the three people in the room and Szayel did a beautiful job of imitating a goldfish, his mouth working but with no sound coming out. He gaped at Harribel stupidly for a second or two, before the Third found Nemu at her elbow, guiding her towards one of the padded examination tables. Eventually, Szayel’s brain caught up with his expression and his mouth snapped shut, but not for long.

“You… you’re… I mean…”

“I spoke with Unohana Taichou yesterday, when I saw Hana-chan to the 4th Division for treatment. While I was there, I had her look at… a concern I have. She examined the changes I pointed out and she insisted on a number of blood tests. The results for the pregnancy test came back positive, as did a test she conducted with Kido. I delayed coming until today, as I was required to complete my patrol last evening.”

She watched as he groped and grasped around for his composure in the face of a brand-new challenge. True to form, Szayel hurriedly turned back to the keyboard and began typing as if someone had set his uniform on fire.

“Nemu-chan, please prepare Harribel-sama for the standard screening, an ultrasound, and find another questionnaire while I set up a new case file,” he hurriedly instructed.

While he still sounded tired, there was a sharp gleam in his eye as he stared at the screen. There was also a little more energy in his fingers as he threw himself back into his work. Before long, she found herself wearing a too-short smock that provided minimal decency. While its neckline hid the lower changes to her mask, the facial portion’s retreat was evident. Harribel looked up to find Szayel staring at her newly revealed cheeks, nose and mouth, his left eye twitching as he did so. In the twenty-four hours since she’d shown Kami’s wife the transformation in her Arrancar mask, the bone had drawn back to the spot just below her bottom lip. Nemu helped her sit upon the examination table, draped a sheet over her lower half and parted the smock to reveal her still-flat belly.

Meanwhile, Szayel pushed a large, bulky machine over to the side of the table and took down what looked like two large, flat squares of steel with handles attached and gave them to Nemu, who used Kido to warm them, as well as the contents of a heavy jar sitting on top of the device. Harribel eyed it uneasily until the scientist revealed its purpose.

“This is an ultrasound machine. Think of it as a large camera, one that will give us a glimpse of your unborn child. Nemu, the gel please.”

Szayel set about adjusting the machine while his mate slathered a clear, jelly-like substance over Harribel’s exposed abdomen.

“This will keep the imaging paddles from dragging. While you have a Hierro and the paddles won’t damage your skin, we’ll get a better image if the paddles don’t stick or jerk while they’re on your body,” she calmly explained. When Szayel seemed satisfied with the settings, he indicated that Nemu should proceed.

The smooth metal sliding over her lower belly, aided by the slippery lubricant soon offered up the first image of her long-hoped-for child. Harribel turned her eyes towards the overhead screen, as the fuzzy shape became clearer. Szayel, on the other hand, peered up at the screen and adjusted his ‘glasses,’ squinting through them at the picture.

“Nemu, can you try again? There seems to be some kind of problem here. I’m not seeing the womb itself, though the fetus and placenta seem quite distinct. That’s very odd. Normally it’s the other way around. Amplify the sensors, and take them up two settings. There’s some kind of interference going on.”

“What you see is my Hollow Hole.”

Nemu’s hand stopped in mid-reach for the controls on the ultrasound and the pink-haired Espada whirled around, staring at Harribel as she lay on the examination table.

“Your… the void is _there_? How can it be _there_? That makes no sense and… and… if it _is_ , how is this…” he motioned up at the screen, where she could see a tiny, bright bean-like thing surrounded by layers upon layers of shifting reiatsu, “…even _possible_?”

She met his incredulous inquiry with an icy expression that would have done Toshiro proud. It made Szayel take a step back, as if suddenly reminded of the gap in their status. It wasn’t a question she’d ever expected to have to answer and she’d divulged this secret to only one other in her long existence.

“My heart was _there_ on the day I perished. I died under a midwife’s blade, to save the life of the child I carried, on the orders of its noble father. That much I remember, Szayelapporo Grantz,” she said quietly, her low, rough voice holding just enough reproach to let the lower ranking Espada know he’d hit a nerve. “I’m here for answers as well.”

Nemu didn’t move a muscle as Harribel said this, and Szayel’s face proceeded to turn chalk-white. He stumbled backward until his hand encountered the chair he’d been sitting in and leaned on it, as if his knees had decided they’d had enough. Rubbing his other hand across his brow, he waited a moment and then tossed his mate a different set of instructions.

“Nemu, have Abarai fetch our son and have him bring one of the completed reiatsu sensors Abisara’s been working on. I think we may have another, more immediate use for it. In the meantime, let’s make sure that I’m actually looking at what I think I’m looking at, shall we?”

Nemu wordlessly handed him the paddles and scampered for one of the room’s control consoles, while Szayel, his golden eyes going wider with each passing minute, took image after image of what she and Toshiro had managed to create. Once Nemu returned, she picked up a clipboard and began asking Harribel the first of many questions. The blonde told them what they wanted to know, even the ones that bordered on an invasion of privacy. Despite his initial reaction, she could see Szayel growing excited, as the details on the screen grew crisper.

“When was the last time you exerted a Claim upon your pet, Harribel-sama?”

“A little over two weeks ago.”

“Hmm… I wonder… have you partaken of him since then?”

“Yes, twice,” she admitted. “We have been trying for a child.”

“What about after the battles?”

She hesitated and then shook her head.

“No. I limit myself to my girls on those nights. Toshiro’s duties preclude me distracting him.”

“Ah, well… I’d always wondered about that… not that the details are any of _my_ business,” he added hastily. “How often do you reassert your Claim upon him?”

“In the last year, twice. I need to renew it every five months or so.”

That seemed to pique the scientist’s interest.

“Intriguing. Whatever differences there might have been between your respective strengths have narrowed significantly. _That_ would increase the likelihood of a pregnancy in a Hollow with all of the requisite parts, as the caseloads on that desk can attest. But…” he said, his golden eyes narrowing a little as he gave her a sidelong look, “I’m sure that you knew that, didn’t you? You’ve everything but the uterus, Tia Harribel, which I fear is where this case takes a sharp left turn into the proverbial weeds. I now need to determine what your future cub is using as a substitute. This is going to be _much_ more involved than I first suspected.”

“Unohana appeared frightened after she examined me.”

“To be blunt, I don’t blame her. This is beyond the pale,” Szayel muttered, then snorted indelicately. “However, I think the sheer outlandishness of what I’m seeing might _just_ grab Aizen’s interest enough to make him want to see the results as your pregnancy progresses. I wouldn’t even have to stretch the truth all that much, provided I supplied enough imagery to dazzle him. A picture and a thousand words and all of that nonsense, you see.”

Anyone less observant would have thought Szayel was speaking of paperwork. Harribel was sharp enough to hear the offer in his words. Had he guessed at her fears or did he somehow know about what she’d asked of Starrk? Karin _was_ his Mistress and she _did_ live with Starrk and his pets on Ukitake Jushiro’s family Estate. Had they discussed her request at some point between yesterday afternoon and today?

A loud knock on the door made Szayel jump, before Nemu quickly opened it. Harribel turned her head to the side to see Szayel’s son walk in, a strange-looking, metal box in his hands with several cords hanging from it. Abarai followed, holding a tearful, droopy-winged Vindula and wearing an apologetic look. Szayel hadn’t requested his daughter’s presence, but from how distraught she seemed, it didn’t look as if Abarai was going to get away with bringing Abisara and not his twin with him.

“Tou-san?” the boy asked, coming to a stop before his father, keeping one worried green eye on Harribel as she lay there. Szayel’s son looked as tired as his father did and clutched the device he carried to him as if his life depended on it working properly. “He… _he_ isn’t here, is he?” Abisara asked this fearfully, almost near tears and Szayel bit his lip. Harribel caught a fleeting glimpse of sorrow cross the other Espada’s face before it vanished completely and he smiled at his son, reaching out to smooth the boy’s hair.

“No. I would like to test the capabilities of what you’ve been working on. This time, I’d like to see if it can differentiate reiryoku signatures. The Third Espada has provided us with an unexpected opportunity to do this, and as the test is non-invasive, it won’t go against any of the strictures in that blasted book. With your permission of course, Harribel-sama.”

She frowned as she watched the pink-haired boy relax, the distress he’d carried with him draining away once Szayel had told him that whomever it was he was frightened of was not in attendance. The fear itself made no sense, given Aizen’s edicts as far as the rest of the Arrancar leaving the children in peace. The skeletal remains of the two she and Toshiro had hauled before Aizen had only just begun to fall apart from where their bodies still hung. The message couldn’t have slipped the minds of any of the other Arrancar this quickly. Then she realized that father and son were waiting for her to allow the use of the child’s project. Glancing up at the screen, at her child hovering in the emptiness that had lain within her for who-knows-how-long, she nodded once and Szayel sprang forward to take the machine.

“Abisara, why don’t you go over there and test your guardian for brain cells. I’ll give you a yen for every one you discover, alright?”

Abarai scowled at Szayel, but got the hint and ushered both the boy and his sister out of the way. The scientist rebooted the sensor and the ultrasound, and then turned both back on and had Nemu resume prodding Harribel's midsection with the paddles. The gel had gone cold by now, but that wasn’t what made her gasp. She heard similar sounds from Szayel and Nemu as the ultrasound now displayed what was going on within her in full color.

“Extraordinary! Nemu, can you magnify it any further? I believe those are blood vessels and they’re feeding at least part of the reiryoku surrounding the fetus!”

“Yes, Szayel-sama.”

Harribel spent the next hour lying flat on her back as Szayel and his mate alternated between taking blood samples, capturing image after image and scribbling copious notes. At one point, Nemu brought over a series of syringes, which she explained contained both prenatal vitamins and necessary immunizations, injecting her with each in turn while Szayel’s fingers furiously recorded the data. He would occasionally shout out some exclamation, as some new, strange aspect of her pregnancy revealed itself, until he finally leaned against the computer console and swept his hand through his hair, brushing it out of his eyes.

“I believe I have enough for a preliminary report. This golden reiryoku,” he told her as he indicated the smaller amount yellow color intertwined with a much larger volume of icy-blue energy, “is your contribution. It provides a foundation for the growth of blood vessels and the supporting tissues, as well as scaffolding, one might say, for the other energy.”

“It’s Toshiro’s, isn’t it?”

“Mmm-hmm. Quite right. There are also layers of it and not all of the blue reiryoku is a recent addition. I’d say that this construction took some time to build, probably over years of refreshed Claims. The proportions are curious as well, since the fetus is apparently feeding from both reiryoku types. The blue reiryoku is at least twice as abundant as yours is. In addition to its role in nourishing the child, I believe it serves as a substitute for the organ you lack. In short, the majority of it provides a barrier between the void and the placenta, as well acting as a container for the necessary liquid environment. Which brings us to a few interesting points regarding the changes I suspect it will undergo as your cub develops.”

“Will it change in the same way that my mask has changed?”

Szayel frowned, pink brows knitted as he considered the question and his expression grew both thoughtful and serious. Tapping one finger against his lower lip, he pointed to her nose and mouth.

“Not quite. Those modifications are entirely utilitarian and the result of specific hormonal changes on your part. No, I’m talking about the fact that you will need to _keep_ Claiming your pet in order to bring in more of his reiryoku to shore up the growing structure you see around the cub. As the child grows larger, so will the barrier, hence the increased need for his energy. I’m going to be conservative here and tell you to keep Claiming him frequently, to keep the proportions of interlaced reiryoku at their current levels. Any lessening of yours will starve the baby and the placenta, as the blood vessels and tissue within it provide the majority of its material nourishment. I don’t see this happening, as your body will automatically contribute whatever it needs. However,” he warned, “any lessening or thinning of your pet’s reiryoku will leave your cub’s developing body and the placenta exposed to what I can only assume is a hostile environment. I’ll be very curious to see if that holds true if, Kami help me, another pregnant female walks through my doors today… or tomorrow.”

She felt a little dizzy as he finished his summary. Harribel had deliberately chosen Toshiro because of his potential, but if what Szayel had said was fact, her body had greedily begun preparations for this long before the last five years, siphoning off the reiatsu she’d taken from him to create a haven for their child. She’d thought that the reason she’d needed to Claim him more frequently had been due to his increase in power over the last half-decade. Looking at what her body had spun out of their combined reiryoku, she decided that was only partly true. If a bit of what she’d taken in Claiming him had gone towards this every time she’d done so, then of course she’d need to keep supplementing it with more Claims.

“The long and short of it, Harribel-sama, is that you’ll need his reiryoku and reiatsu to _keep_ yourself pregnant, probably more so as you get closer to delivery.”

“How often would I have to Claim him?” she asked hesitantly.

“I’m not certain about that, but pregnancy puts quite a strain on a female’s body. At present, and because I have no other Arrancar pregnancies to which I can compare this and even if I did, I doubt they would resemble yours, let’s go with monthly for now. I want to monitor this _very_ carefully, not only for this case’s unique qualities, but also for the trends I think this represents. I’d like to perform an ultrasound on you each week, especially during the first few months.”

“What would those trends be, Szayel-sama?”

This came from Nemu, who seemed to be assembling all of the disparate data into one report. Harribel wondered how long it would take for it to make it to Aizen’s desk. Szayel rested his chin on the knuckles of one fist, his elbow balanced on his forearm and his eyes focused on some unseen point.

“Oh, nothing much. Just the acclimation of two disparate populations to one another’s collective reiatsus over time. Karin-sama brought it up last week. I have a vast assortment of paperwork, generated in the last twenty-four hours as evidence of this. This is the thirteenth case I’ve seen today. Now, as far as a due date goes, this leaves me in a quandary. I know that your base animal is a shark, but can you tell me the variety? That will help us determine how far along you are as well as give us an estimate of the length of each trimester.”

“A blue shark,” Harribel found herself saying. Szayel made a pleased noise as he went to a third computer and entered the information. She could see his eyes following the data as it scrolled from the bottom towards the top of the screen, like two golden coins moving up and down behind his mask fragments.

“Now that’s interesting. That particular species gives birth to live young, so there won’t be the extra consideration of an egg casing to take into account. There also appears to be only one child, so we won’t have to worry about any intrauterine cannibalism going on…”

“Szayel-sama…”

Nemu’s voice held a small amount of censure and if she looked off to the right, Harribel noted that Abarai had gone a little gray in the face at the imagery the scientist conjured. She wasn’t particularly pleased with his words either. Szayel sniffed, but thankfully left the rest of the sentence unfinished.

“I’m only reading what it says in the zoological database,” he protested haughtily and when the resulting silence thickened, he threw up his hands. “Fine. I’m going to estimate a full, nine-month pregnancy, since the average blue shark’s gestation can take between nine to twelve months. As such, there may be a few issues when your third trimester gets underway. I’m not certain what your labour will look like. No uterus, no contractions… things could get _very_ interesting.”

Harribel wasn’t entirely sure she liked the way he said ‘interesting’. It implied the word ‘difficult’ without actually saying so.

“Does it work Tou-san?” a small, worried voice piped up from the spot where Abisara had a strange contraption secured around Abarai’s temples. Between the two prods in the boy’s hands and the little girl clinging to the front of his tear-stained uniform, the redhead had the appearance of a man besieged. Brown eyes stared warily at the wires Abisara was about to attach to the metal headband girding his skull.

Szayel favoured his son with a pleased grin and tapped the sensor’s outer casing.

“Of course it does! It’s doing a beautiful job of discerning different energies from one another, and on such a tiny target too! I’m quite impressed with your work. I’m sure we’ll be able to suss out the Swarm with this, long before they can reach the Seireitei.”

“I have two more to make, Tou-san. I’m trying to work faster, but…”

Oblivious to her presence, Szayel walked over to the child and got down on one knee, the very picture of a proud father. He placed both hands on the boy’s shoulders in what she guessed was supposed to be a reassuring gesture.

“Abisara, you’re doing _very_ well. Don’t worry. We’ll have things ready by the deadline, even if I have to stay awake for a week. However, _you_ need food and a nap.” The scientist took in the sight of his children’s guardian, using his sleeve as a handkerchief for Vindula. The little girl clutched a sodden white square of fabric with bits of blue and yellow along one side. It had long since been soaked through with saltwater.

“Abarai, as the search for your brain is an inherent waste of time, why don’t you take the children down to the family quarters? It’s nearly teatime and I’m quite certain that they’re due for a meal and a brief respite.”

Harribel wasn’t sure if the expression on Abarai’s face was irritation over the blatant insult to his intelligence or relief that his potential electrocution had been put on hold. She’d noticed that Szayel’s pet, aside from his perpetual over-protectiveness towards the twins, also got very nervous around her on the few occasions she and her girls had run into them. Today was no exception, as he gratefully extracted himself from the headband and wires and bolted from the room with the scientist’s children.

“What worries your son?” she asked quietly, unable to help herself. The boy stank of fear from the moment he’d walked in, despite the presence of his parents and his guardian and very little of it had been directed towards her. No, the child had asked about ‘him’ and ‘he’. Szayel and Nemu’s eyes met and it appeared as if some silent debate was going on between them. Finally, the other Espada’s mate looked down at her hands and lowered her eyes submissively.

“I shall defer to your wishes, Szayel-sama. Harribel-san’s report is ready. Shall I make an appointment for her for next week?”

“Yes, please. When you’re done, why don’t you join our children and send Abarai downstairs. He and I need to speak of some important things after the Third Espada and I conclude our business.”

Nemu nodded and proceeded to clean the gel off of Harribel’s midsection before handing her carefully folded uniform and undergarments to her. She then exited, but not before casting one last glace at her mate, the concern in it almost equal to the fear she’d seen in Abisara’s eyes. Szayel had at least four copies printing out by the time she finished dressing behind the screen provided for such purposes and was thumbing through them to make sure each contained the same number of sheets. Harribel delicately cleared her throat.

“You have yet to answer my question, Seventh,” she reminded him. He glanced up at her and then back down to the reports in his hands.

“Aizen. He fears Aizen.”

Szayel said the word in the same way that he might spit out a bite of rancid meat and Harribel held her breath. She knew that Aizen had done some terrible things to Szayel, but she’d never seen Aizen act inappropriately towards the scientist’s twins. The boy’s demeanour said something different, however. The blonde bit her newly-exposed lip, the movement hidden behind her high collar.

“Why? Is it because of what he’s done to you in the past?”

Szayel gave up on shuffling the papers. Instead, he walked over to the table and placed them in a separate pile from the others. Then he turned around and folded his arms, leaning against the heavy metal object. His eyes were still on the large overhead screen and his voice dripped with the same kind of scorn that had tainted Starrk’s attitude the day before.

“Past? Oh, my dear Third Espada, Kami _continues_ to play his little games with my Mistress, all in order to find ways to circumvent his own rules regarding the disciplining of ‘pets’. There is nothing ‘past’ about his unwanted attentions towards my person.”

“But you belong to Grimmjow’s mate! He agreed, before all of us, that she was to handle any punishments!”

Her disbelief earned her an outright laugh from the scientist, but there was no humour in the sound.

“Oh, I thought so as well, at least for a few years after that one, _humiliating_ afternoon. Of late, he’s become fixated on punishing me for anything he deems a slight, just to get me beneath him for some entertainment. You do remember that little insect-collection junket, don't you? The one where he sent out my Mistress, her mate and Starrk-san to capture that accursed Portal Scarab downstairs? I’ll give you three guesses as to what, or rather, _who_ , Aizen spent his time doing while they were conveniently gone!”

There were times that Harribel was very glad that the collar of her jacket covered the majority of her face. This was rapidly turning out to be one of them, as Szayel casually informed her of each and every time, in the last five years, that Aizen had broken his own laws and raped him. If he was lying to her, he was doing a good job of it and her skin began to crawl with each revelation. A sense of déjà vu came over her when Szayel paused in his awful narrative and proceeded to lock both sets of doors leading into the room. Unohana had done the same thing, though this time it was not at Harribel’s request. He also tapped a few things out on the console closest to the exit. Her earlier apprehension about treading lightly while in Szayel’s domain came back five-fold and she was suddenly very glad Tiburon was within reach.

He gave her a mirthless smirk as he came to stand before her. Her hackles immediately went up when he reached for the collar of his uniform’s jacket and pulled downward on the fasteners holding the two sides together. Harribel reminded herself that she’d done the same thing with Unohana, to show the healer what she’d tried to keep hidden from others.

“I’ve turned off the recording equipment and the cameras, and no one will bother us while I prove to you that we who were once Vasto Lordes might have made a bad bargain in our choice of leaders… not that Aizen truly gave us many alternatives when he recruited us.”

She couldn’t help recoiling from the sight of the myriad scars that Aizen had carved on Szayel’s body over the years. The examination room’s harsh fluorescent lighting concealed nothing. It certainly couldn’t hide the old marks, the ones she’d seen on the day that she’d had to watch Grimmjow’s weeping mate whip Szayel for his supposed inaction in putting up the Defence Net. Nor could it hide the new ones, the angry red kanji carved into his barely-healed Hierro. The message was clear for anyone who was close enough to the Seventh to view his bared torso, and from its configuration, she guessed that Aizen meant for Szayel to read it from multiple angles.

Harribel wished she could blame the nausea that gurgled to life in her stomach on morning sickness. Instead, her hands clenched the table’s edge on either side of her, the corners cutting into her palms enough to leave a straight-edged indentation.

“This… this doesn’t entirely explain your son’s distress,” she tried to say, “unless he’s seen this and fears for your safety.”

Szayel gave her a hard look and then reached out one arm to touch the casing of the sensor that the child had brought into the room, running his fingers over its surface.

“I, my mate and Abarai have tried to keep all of this from them. Our ability to do so, unfortunately, may come to an end soon. The latest incident proved that to me. Kami intended to punish Abisara for ‘failing’ in his efforts to help me isolate and created detectors for the distinct radiation given off by the Portal Bugs when they activate their wings. The deadline was unreasonable. Aizen set it in order to trap me in that playroom of his, the one in the bowels of his Palace. He also has a tendency to show up, unannounced, at this Division in order to ‘catch’ me doing something that might warrant punishment. Hence the locks. Try as I might, Harribel-san, this particular deck isn’t stacked in my favour, especially when I agreed to take the punishment Aizen intended for my son upon my own shoulders.”

“What did he do to you?” she found herself whispering. Nothing she’d heard seemed to warrant any sort of penalty, especially for a young boy trying to assist his father. Szayel’s eyes darkened and the shadows beneath them lent a sinister edge to what he said next.

“Considering what he usually does to me, I readily agreed to take this one, in order to spare my boy. I’d been up for three days and nights trying to complete the project, to no avail thanks to that worthless insect’s refusal to move its wings. Aizen proceeded to rape me, taking me in a mate’s position, for nearly twelve straight hours, using his Zanpakuto’s abilities to keep me from sleeping while he did so. I also think he forced his servant to help in that little endeavour. Aizen would have kept at it if Abarai hadn’t sought out my Mistress for help.”

She could barely find her voice, lips trembling and bloodless as she listened.

“He couldn’t… he _wouldn_ _’_ _t_ … not to one of the cubs!” Harribel stammered, the bile rising in the back of her throat. Szayel gave her a withering glare, made worse by the disappointment she saw directed at her.

“You sound as if you don’t believe me. Perhaps you should ask Starrk-san,” he said scathingly. “I’m sure he’ll confirm my story, since he accompanied Karin and Abarai to the Palace’s dungeons to liberate me from that torture chamber. He’s quite put out about Aizen nibbling around the edges of his pack, or so Karin-sama tells me.”

Harribel had just enough warning to get to her feet and find the closest wastebasket, barely managing to pull her collar down and free her lips before she threw up the remnants of her lunch into the receptacle. Hacking and coughing, she kept gagging until there was nothing left to remove from her gut. A dampened paper towel, plucked from the holder by the sink on the far wall, materialized next to her head and she grabbed it from Szayel’s fingers. The scalding tone of his voice belied the gallantry he’d just shown her.

“Tsk. I keep forgetting just how tetchy the digestive tract of a pregnant woman can be. I suggest dry bread and mint tea. Tesra’s little human mate swears by those as a means to…”

“Why are you telling me this, Szayel?” she gasped, once she’d wiped her mouth and tried to resume an upright position. Harribel heard him snort a bit derisively.

“Because you asked why my son is frightened of Aizen paying us a visit. It isn’t _my_ fault that the answer wasn’t to your liking. Consider it a courtesy on my part, a preview of what you can expect once _your_ child is born.”

“What do you mean?”

“Grimmjow, Ulquiorra and I have all had the ‘pleasure’ of a visit from Kami, shortly after our children’s births. I’m sure he’ll include you and your pet in our select club of threatened parents. He’ll take your cub from you and he will make it clear to you and your pet what will befall your child if you so much as breathe incorrectly. If you don’t believe me,” Szayel warned, “it might behoove you to speak with the Sixth and the Fourth Espadas. Maybe you could even lower yourself to speak to Nnoitra Gilga about it after his pet and his fraccion’s mate give birth, as they’re due in mid-to-late summer. I’m sure Aizen will do the same to them. You’ll be at the start of your third trimester at that point then. I suppose it’s best to be prepared.”

The blonde wanted to sink to her knees, but managed to stay on her feet, bracing herself against the closest solid surface to do so. The hand that clutched the paper towel shook, especially as Szayel continued his sardonic diatribe.

“That is, of course, _if_ he allows you to carry to term. Unohana-Taichou sent me a lovely little letter yesterday. It was a bit… cryptic, and it did not mention _you_ specifically, but now,” he said with mock-thoughtfulness and a sweeping motion towards the ultrasound image still on the screen, “I see what she was getting at as far as ‘ensuring that Kami recognizes the value and uniqueness of each case that comes before me.’ I’m going to go out on a limb here, my dear, and assume she was referring to _this_.”

She glared at him, for his words, for voicing all of the fears she’d held carefully in check. The most unforgivable thing was confirming her worst suspicions about Aizen’s proclivities and his condescending tone when he spoke to her. She was about to correct him about that, to inform him that she was of a much higher rank than he at present, before she remembered that not only was she in his den, but that she would have to rely on him to make sure the cub she carried made it. The problem was that he was well aware of her present predicament and his subsequent words let her know he wasn’t above using that to his advantage.

“Sadly, there is such a thing as being too good at one’s job.”

Here, Harribel bared her teeth, thinking of her potential alliance with Starrk and Lilynette.

“I’ve asked the First to take my unborn as his fraccion. By Aizen’s own laws, he’ll not be able to force me to give up my cub!” she hissed and Szayel’s response was to ramp up the pity in his expression.

“Have you heard nothing I’ve said, oh Third Espada? Aizen feels himself above _all_ laws, his or ours or anyone else’s, including the laws of physics. Are these…” and here he indicated the ugly scars that marred his once unmarked torso, “not enough to convince you? Would you like to see the ones on Abarai? He managed to distract Aizen long enough for our ruler to forego tearing one of Vindula’s wings off in punishment for a perceived failure on my part. My pet decided it would be better if he took whatever harm Aizen intended for her on himself.”

“Enough!!!” she shouted, her eyes screwed shut and her fists rising to either side of her head, as if she could use them to blot out the unbearable things coming from Szayel’s mouth. He seemed taken aback at her vehemence and she used his silence to try to gather her thoughts in the face of what was surely the most treasonous thing she’d heard since she’d set foot in the Seireitei.

‘Treasonous,’ of course did not mean he wasn’t also correct.

If anything, Szayel’s nastily delivered warning, for that was how she chose to interpret it, only served to reinforce the instincts that had led her to seek help from the First. As if he could read her thoughts, Szayel chose that moment to chip away at her assumption that Starrk’s involvement might be enough to dissuade Aizen from involving himself with her people.

“If Aizen truly gains the Throne, if Unohana-Taichou gives him the child he so desires, not even Starrk and Lilynette will be able to stand against him. He won’t need the Espada any longer either, which means he’ll probably bring this grand ‘experiment’ with us to an end. He’ll have little use for ‘enforcers’, or their pets… or their children, for that matter once he can not only see but hear _anything_ anyone utters in all of the Realms he’ll rule. Personally, I predict a bloodbath.”

He almost sounded contemplative about it, as if he were pondering the idea from a remote, academic view rather than someone currently under Aizen’s relentless scrutiny.

“Of course, if he’s willing to hurt _my_ cubs and to leave Ajuga and Diaemus to the mercy of the Swarm, one wonders how long he’ll let his own child, a potential rival for the Royal seat live. I’m willing to bet it will be less than a minute.”

“You’ve a vile mind, Szayel Apporo Grantz!” she spat, sickened by his insinuations. Szayel merely gave her a bland look.

“Hmm, yes, well, I’ve heard _much_ worse over the years. Sticks and stones and all that rubbish. It doesn’t make what I’m telling you any less true. So let me ask you something, now that I’ve torn down a few of your illusions regarding Aizen and the taboos he’s willing, nay, _eager_ to break. I would like your thoughts on the matter. You, quite smartly I might add, requested aid of Coyote Starrk. I’m sure his protection came with a price tag. His mind isn’t as sleep-fogged as you might think. That alone tells me you’ve had your own doubts about Aizen.”

There was no point on denying either of his allegations on that count, though she did break eye contact with him.

“He said he would do it, if I took in Barragan’s former pet, the one your Mistress is caring for.”

It took Szayel a few seconds to process this, but when he did, his fingers drummed together gleefully and he tossed his head back in a hearty laugh that seemed incredibly inappropriate, given the topic with which he was currently bludgeoning her.

“Goodness… I will have to hand it to the First! Maybe all of that napping serves an intellectual purpose after all! I know that a number of people were angry about the Second’s actions but I didn’t think Starrk would take such an active role in finding a solution! I do hope you take him up on that. I’d hate to lose a perfectly good specimen for the lack of a Claim.”

Harribel did her best to ignore how Szayel referred to Soi Fon’s cub and instead settled on glaring at him.

“I haven’t said yes yet. I need to discuss it…” she tried to say, before Szayel actually rolled his eyes at her.

“With whom? Your three fraccion? Your pet? No, wait, let me guess… if you’re this worried about how he might react, he hardly qualifies as a _pet_ any longer, does he?”

She didn’t understand why he was being so rude, so confrontational with her. Toshiro’s status within her household was no business of his, though he’d brought up the very thing that had kept her from telling Starrk she would do what he wanted. _If_ she wasn’t entirely sure of where she stood with Toshiro, _if_ she was actually concerned about it, it was _her_ issue to sort out, not his. Harribel chose to backtrack and row this strange excuse for a conversation back into calmer currents.

“I will confess that I do not wish Aizen’s gaze to linger for too long on my girls, or Toshiro. I’ve done my best to give him no reason to look our way.”

“And you’ve done a truly admirable job of it… up until now. I’m afraid that by allowing one of the most powerful surviving Shinigami to impregnate you, and in such a spectacularly unorthodox manner, you’ve opened up a box of trouble that you will not easily close. While you might be the first confirmed Arrancar female in the family way, I doubt you’ll be the last and therefore, Aizen can afford to be choosy as to which one of his creations he allows to remain pregnant. I’d wager that there would be a few others besides you, if Unohana’s warning to me holds true. Bless her; her note gave me just enough warning to pull a few mechanically-inclined researchers off of their pet projects to help my son while I handle this poorly-timed crisis of fertility. I wouldn’t want to miss another one of Kami’s deadlines,” he told her in a voice dripping with sarcasm. Harribel squared her shoulders, tired of his baiting and ready to put an end to it.

“What do you want from me Szayel? Even if what you’ve told me is accurate, there is little _I_ can do to stop him!”

“Spot-on, my dear Third! Alone, you would stand little chance against his Zanpakuto’s Shikai. His partial grip on the Spirit King’s Throne gives him vast amounts of power from which he can draw to quell any who might protest what he does. Starrk might last a little while against him, but the odds aren’t in the Coyote’s favour in a prolonged fight.”

“You speak as if it Aizen’s wrath is something inevitable!”

Szayel looked ruefully at her and sighed.

“When he tires of breaking me and mine, he will seek fresh meat. If his plan to ennoble his bloodline succeeds, there will be nowhere in all of the Realms to hide, nowhere that he cannot reach… and no one and nothing will be safe from him. Believe me, Harribel, when I say that you are closer to danger than you realize.”

“I could repeat everything you’ve just said to me to Aizen. I could use it to curry favour with him, to perhaps supplant Ulquiorra as his most trusted Espada.”

Harribel said this with more resolution that she felt, and he appeared to ponder the possibility, tapping his lower lip with one finger. He then proceeded to give her what might have been the most infuriatingly smug smile she’d ever seen, had it not been mixed with an equal amount of sorrow.

“Ah, the prisoner’s dilemma, in which two rivals with sensitive information must decide if betraying the other to an overseeing authority will result in a reward at the other’s expense. I do so love a classic behavioural puzzle! I would remind you that if your goal involved staying beneath Aizen’s notice, going before him with such a tale would bring his scrutiny down upon you… once he was finished raping and executing my household, of course. And here I thought you and your fraccion enjoyed my little girl’s company.”

Harribel pressed her lips together until they lost all color, weighing her options and coming up with nothing that favoured making Aizen aware of what he’d just told her. In fact, there were too many of those that she cared for who would suffer, directly or indirectly, if she did so and by Szayel’s expression, he’d known it the moment he’d started in on her. This was the dramatically devious Szayel she remembered and finding herself abruptly confronted by that aspect of his personality unsettled her. She’d had too many shocks in the last two days and didn’t know how many more she could handle.

As angry as she was about him dumping all of this in her unprepared lap, Harribel also had one very important reason to abandon the tattle-tale’s path as well as the path of the fence-sitter. She’d taken such an approach with Barragan and she’d nearly lost both her pack and her life as a result. She couldn’t afford to make the same error twice.

With a deep breath, she focused her eyes on one of the more recently-made carvings on Szayel’s chest, the one that said “Obedient” if one turned it upside down and reversed it, and tried to calm down enough to apply the critical thinking that everyone else seemed to expect of her to the situation at hand.

Szayel _might_ be telling her this under the guise of answering a question pertaining to his son, but there was more than that at work here. Szayel had no overt reason to enlighten her about what had occurred between Aizen and his unfortunate pack, even if he couched it as a warning. Unless, of course, he wanted something from her. Normally, she thought, one wouldn’t adopt such a quarrelsome tone when asking for such. Her humility towards Starrk was a prime example of what one ought to do when making a request of a much stronger entity. Szayel, on the other hand, appeared to be goading her towards a goal of his choosing, using his disclosures as a prod.

Therefore, she had something that he wanted and he made a frighteningly good case for giving it to him. Either that or he wanted her to do something. It didn’t help that, as much as she disliked needing another Arrancar, her present condition meant that she required his help. Still, her innate sense of caution prevailed when it came to promising anything to the Seventh.

“Have you informed those Numeros who have come to you, about what Aizen has done, about the threat he poses to _their_ cubs?” she asked warily. It didn’t seem like Szayel would want to reveal such a plethora of weaknesses to anyone beneath him. The corners of the scientist’s mouth curled upwards and she inwardly cursed, realizing that he’d anticipated her question.

“No. There’s no need. Aizen will work his way through the Espadas’ packs first, setting an example. The Numeros might even cheer him on, thinking they’ll have a chance to replace us. They won’t realize the danger until it’s far too late.”

Harribel suppressed a full-body shudder. Then she noticed something she realized was important. Szayel had left off any honorifics when uttering Aizen’s surname. He’d also suffused his one use of the word ‘Kami’ with enough scorn to negate whatever exalted status it might convey.

He’d all but given her a list of charges against their leader and she couldn’t find fault with anything on it. He’d conveyed a warning to her and she had little doubt that, aside from its shoddy and unnecessarily provocative delivery, the threat behind it was genuine. He’d mentioned the Spirit King’s Throne and the unspoken knowledge that Aizen’s grip on power wasn’t a certain thing. The underlying self-assurance she could see simmering beneath the abused front he showed meant that he knew far more than he was letting on.

There was only one real conclusion Harribel could draw from all of it and it left her somewhat woozy.

“You’re asking me to help overthrow him, aren’t you?” she breathed, the pupils in her sea-glass eyes shrinking to pinpoints as the realization washed over her. Her arms involuntarily wrapped around her belly, a useless gesture but one she made just the same.

Instead of answering right away, Szayel pulled one of the reports he’d printed out from its place on the table of stacked papers and slipped it into a folder. Pulling the chair she’d initially seen him sitting in to a spot just out of arm’s reach, he sat down and fixed his golden eyes on her.

“You never answered my question, Tia Harribel. What do you think of our illustrious leader? I’d like to point out, before you answer, that your actions to this point indicate a distinct lack of confidence.”

Harribel closed her eyes and counted to ten, then counted to ten again, putting the brakes on her temper. She would not allow him to back her into a corner like this, but there was little she could say in the face of Szayel’s coolly-stated facts.

Aizen’s actions _had_ angered her one too many times. He’d shown himself to be no better than Barragan and while he’d delivered on many of the things he’d promised, it would appear that in many cases, those things came with strings attached. Szayel’s scars were proof of it. Even that wouldn’t be such a surprise, when one accounted for the typical interactions between high-level Hollows.

The threats against Szayel’s cubs were another thing entirely. Harribel had always prided herself on her willingness to take care of those who looked up to her. Even Toshiro, who hadn’t exactly been what she would call a ‘willing’ pack member during their early years together, had come to see her as something other than the controlling monster he’d once called her. Why then, she asked herself, was she following someone who exhibited only strength, and not the protectiveness that ought to have accompanied it? No Alpha would ever prey on their own, least of all their pack’s cubs. Not if they wanted to remain in that position.

She wished she could use fear as an excuse for her servitude. She’d been rightly afraid of Barragan for all those centuries and yet she hadn’t bowed her head to the stronger male. What made Aizen so different from that skull-faced bag of bones that he could expect her unquestioning support for things she would have held against the Second had he done them?

The answer, she reluctantly told herself, was ‘nothing’.

“I do not trust him. Not after seeing this. Not after… what you’ve told me.”

Szayel’s smug smile turned triumphant and she suspected she’d walked right into the conclusion he’d wanted her to reach.

“An intelligent answer on your part, though one I would expect from anyone with half a brain.”

She glowered at him. While she might have lost all faith in Aizen, it didn’t mean that she was ready to pull the rug out from beneath the only thing standing between her pack and an eternity beneath Barragan’s thumb. Without Aizen, there would be little to stop the walking skeleton from trying to reclaim his former title and his power over Hueco Mundo. She had little doubt he would try to add the Seireitei to his ‘empire’ too.

“You wouldn’t be telling me this without a reason, Szayel. I’ll reiterate... are you planning to overthrow him? Do you actually relish life with Barragan’s boot on the small of your back? If so, I’m afraid that I don’t share your enthusiasm for such a future.”

Szayel coughed discretely into his fist, sounding scornful.

“Third, I would worry less about Barragan and more about the very _real_ threat that hangs over your head as we speak. I would ask for your backing, but if you cannot give that outright, then I would ask that you stay out of our way while we bring him down, end the danger to our cubs and…”

“Our?” she whispered, and leaned forward, despite her misgivings. “It’s more than just you, isn’t it? This is madness, Szayel! He is far stronger than the lot of us combined! You saw what he was capable of during the War and you’re still planning something this reckless?”

The only answer she received was an enigmatic smile that promised much and delivered little. Harribel could guess the identity of at least one conspirator. Grimmjow didn’t strike her as the sort that would allow Aizen to continue to indulge himself with the Espada’s personal property without taking action. However, Szayel’s attitude implied that he had more support than that and the only other Espada with cubs were two that had little reason, from her perspective, to join in a mutiny. Nnoitra Gilga, for all of his blustering, wasn’t concerned with anything outside of his small sphere and Ulquiorra’s loyalty was steadfast and unwavering, so fixed that one could navigate a ship by it.

Unless… unless it wasn’t. Aizen’s unwillingness to pursue Diaemus might have changed that. Then there were the years of influence the sweet-natured Orihime had exerted upon her mate.

Fortunately, Szayel all but handed her the answer with a wave of his hand.

“Oh, did I mention that the cubs in question aren’t all hybrids? I suggest you chew on that for a moment,” he added and let his golden eyes drift towards his nails, as if examining them while he waited for her to connect the dots.

Her blood could not have grown colder nor more sluggish if Toshiro had suddenly appeared and cast his Bankai at her, its ice encasing her limbs as it once had during their long ago battle. There was only one, non-hybrid child that made her home among the Espada and their respective pets and mates. In that instant, she understood the disgust that she saw in Starrk’s body language the day before.

Profound rage followed closely on amazement’s heels. Hana was _her_ fraccion. _She_ was the girl’s protector and though the young Shinigami had never said a word to her about anything being amiss, Szayel had just informed her that Aizen posed a direct threat to Toshiro’s 7th Seat.

“Hana… Kami, he’s threatened _Hana_ … I don’t understand! She’s done nothing…”

“I will admit that the danger to Hana is high, but _not_ immediate. Nevertheless, yes, it exists and I’m afraid I cannot enlighten you as to why unless you agree to either join our cause or conveniently find somewhere else to be when we make our move. Please take this as the flattery it is when I tell you that I do not want to face you, your mate or any combination thereof when we take him down.”

Harribel felt as if she was standing on the crumbling edge of a cliff with no way to back up and retreat to safety. She could jump and risk everything in an attempt to make it to the other side, or she could stay and pray that by standing still she could preserve what solid ground remained beneath her. Those she cared for, her girls, Toshiro, Hana, the cub she carried, would be in danger no matter which option she chose. Szayel had given her a third alternative, to make herself scare while his co-conspirators did their best to rid themselves of Aizen, but that was in and of itself a choice that favoured their rebellion. Even if they had Starrk on their side, their chances of winning were slim.

Except, of course, she deigned to participate in what they had planned too.

She’d promised Grimmjow and Ise Nanao, Starrk’s fraccion, that she would take care of Hana, that she would protect her. Starrk and Lilynette might have chosen not to blame her this time for what had occurred with the Swarm, but if Aizen posed a threat to Hana herself and Harribel didn’t try to do something to avert it, she would have more than enough trouble on her doorstep, courtesy of the combined First.

If she went to Aizen now, she would put her newest fraccion at risk as well as ruin the alliance she’d tried to build so carefully with Starrk.

If she went along with Szayel, she could very well be signing her own death warrant, as well as those of her girls and Toshiro. It came down, she decided, on who she trusted more and which outcome she feared less, as well as which obligations she chose to honour. Toshiro would certainly have no qualms about joining such a rebellion, especially after everything that had happened to the late Hinamori.

“If it is any consolation, I can’t actually remember an instance, in all of the time Aizen has involved himself with we Arrancar, when he ever told us to trust him. Obey? Yes. Fear? Undoubtedly. Follow? Without question. But trust? No… I believe that we heard what we wanted to hear on that one,” the Seventh added bitterly.

After a few minutes of deliberation, Harribel looked up and met Szayel’s steady, tired gaze, then ran her fingers through her hair, feeling a little worn down as well. She turned the file folder containing the images of her unborn cub over and over in her hands, wondering if what she was about to do would be the death of it. With some reluctance, she made her decision.

“What must I do to help you?”

To his credit, Szayel refrained from gloating, or boasting or engaging in crowing of any kind. Instead, he leaned his upper body forward, enough for her to read some of the older scars that ruined the skin of his shoulders and adjusted the remnants of his cracked mask. His expression shifted from ‘satisfied’ to ‘grim’ and she knew he was about to tighten the net he’d cast around her.

“Swear to me on the lives of your cub, your mate and those loose-lipped girls you call your fraccion that what I say to you will remain within the confines of this Division. Your rank means nothing in this undertaking. Do not discuss this with your household, nor with that young man of yours unless I, Grimmjow or Karin give you leave to do so.”

Harribel could forgive the commanding tone his voice had taken on. However, if she was going to commit, at the very least, to turning a blind eye and letting three powerful Espada take on their creator in a bid for freedom, she would demand some recompense from the scientist.

“I want something in addition to the information you have for me, Szayel.”

“What would that be?” he inquired, moving to the console to file the digital report her pregnancy had generated.

“An answer to a puzzle that has bothered me for quite some time,” she replied, and in turn, one of his eyebrows went up behind the rims of his glasses at her ambiguous wording.

“I will provide such, if it is something I feel is safe to reveal, or for which I have a reply. Some things in this Division remain a mystery even to me. I’m not its first occupant and its former owner embodied the Aspect of Madness, more than I ever could.”

She nodded and slung Tiburon around her shoulders, securing the blade in its usual spot. Picking up the report, she clutched it to her chest while Szayel donned his jacket and covered up the evidence of Aizen’s continued abuse. Then he spent a few minutes at the computers, cancelling out programs and securing those as well.

“Thank you,” Harribel said softly when he’d finished. He sniffed and gave her an intent stare, despite his haggard expression.

“Do not thank me yet. Just understand that if you break your word, you will have removed the last, best chance of turning Aizen’s attentions away from you and yours. Help us, and we’ll both be free of a threat to our progeny.”

“But Barragan…” she began and he smiled wanly at the blonde before unlocking the door.

“We’ll deal with him later. He’s not invulnerable and for that matter, neither is Aizen. One tyrant at a time, Third. Now come with me. I’ve information to give both you and Abarai and I’ve too much to do today to tell the same story twice.”


	45. The Last to Know

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to mention all these chapters with Toshiro and Harribel were heavily written by Black Fox. Pretty much everything with them and Renji is her.

She returned to her den following her initial examination at Szayel’s Division, an appointment that had gone on much longer than she had foreseen. Her arms were laden with food packages from one of her fraccions’ favourite eateries and one of the sweet shops she knew Toshiro frequented. Harribel arrived home much later than she anticipated.

Unfortunately, the Third Espada also walked in on a murder-about-to-happen.

The first thing she saw once she made it past the front gate was a Shinigami with the insignia of the 4th Division on his arm dangling in Mila Rose’s left-hand grip. Her tallest, strongest follower had her right fist drawn back, poised to send Unohana’s underling into next week, while Apache and Sung Sun sported identically vicious expressions on their faces.

“How DARE you order us to undergo such a thing! Our WORD should be enough, you slimy little…” she’d heard Mila Rose roar before Harribel decided that the death of a 4th Division healer wouldn’t do her any favours in Unohana’s eyes.

“Girls, I’m home. Please put him down and help me with these packages.”

She added a flare of her reiatsu to her calmly uttered order and the effect was instantaneous. The Shinigami’s eyes rolled back into his head and he went limp. Apache and Sung Sun were at her elbows in a heartbeat, grabbing the bags and containers and hustling them into the house with exclamations of pleasure and surprise. Mila Rose dropped the temporarily stunned Shinigami, but remained where she was, growling at him. Harribel noticed the medical kit lying discarded on the front walkway and casually made her way to the seething lioness’s side.

“What seems to be the problem?”

The healer came to, curled on his side where he’d landed and feebly tried to crawl over to his kit. Harribel placed a hand on her fraccion’s shoulder to keep her from trying to prevent its retrieval. Mila Rose’s answer all but dripped with outrage.

“He said we have to undergo a PREGNANCY test of all things! Why? The only male in this house is Toshiro and we haven’t touched him since you said he was off-limits! We’d never let some disgusting Numeros put his… his… _thing_ in us and there aren’t any untaken Shinigami worth having!”

Harribel sighed and her fingertips found her forehead. She’d apparently gotten here just in time. Reaching down, she offered a hand up to the terrified 4th Division member. He eyed it as if her hand might bite him, and then gingerly took it. Once he was on his feet, she could see him trying to gauge the distance between her and the front gate, calculating just how far he had to run to make a break for it.

She couldn’t help the second, weary-sounding sigh that escaped her. It had been a long, emotionally and physically draining day and it apparently wasn’t over yet.

“Mila Rose, go fetch your ‘sisters.’ I know what this is about and the order comes directly from Kami’s wife. I do not want to run afoul of her. Consider it an order from _me_ if you must.”

The dusky woman gawked at her for moment before she disappeared with a ‘huff’. She returned a few moments later with her two, equally irritated compatriots. The three stood grumpily to one side, while Harribel gave them a stern look. She rarely had to discipline them, but they’d almost done something that would have had dire repercussions, all due to an inadvertent stab to her girls’ collective self-esteem. The ruffled Shinigami went about each blood draw with surprisingly steady hands and a Kido-infused needle, but didn’t linger once he’d finished and the vials labeled with her fraccion’s names. Mila Rose rubbed at her inner elbow afterwards, unable to contain her anger at what she considered a personal attack on the part of someone much lower in rank.

“Why would they do something like that?” she snapped, frustrated at having to go along with the tests.

Harribel closed her eyes and took a deep breath, happy to have averted a potential catastrophe. She would have to send Mila Rose over to the 4th Division tomorrow, to apologize to Unohana-Taichou for her short-tempered behaviour towards a minion just trying to carry out an instruction.

“Girls, come inside. We have important things to discuss,” she said quietly and turned on her heel, making for the kitchen and the stack of take-out bags.

She only had to reach for one of the bags before Apache whisked it out of her hands and Sung Sun opened a cupboard to fetch the dishes, disappearing into the dining room with a stack of plates and bowls. Mila Rose, still furious and muttering about ‘stupid Shinigami healers shoving their noses where they weren’t wanted,’ turned on the stove and heated water for their evening tea. A glance at the clock told Harribel it was nearly time for Toshiro to leave the office.

Unfortunately, what she could feel through her Claim on him told her otherwise. To the best of her knowledge, Hana was at home recuperating, leaving Toshiro to deal with a backlog of paperwork. The frustration and occasional bursts of anger that flared as someone else brought him yet another problem to fix hadn’t helped her today. Therefore, it wasn’t much of a surprise when one of the black butterflies the Shinigami normally used to send messages between Divisions fluttered through the still-open doorway.

The short missive, letting Harribel know he was going to be late again, left her with mixed feelings. She’d known about Aizen’s demands for each Division’s bookkeeping at the beginning of the month, but she hadn’t realized just how much Hana’s labour on those accounting books had helped Toshiro. Her diligence had freed him up to deal with the many other important aspects of his work. Her news would have to wait a few hours longer, which deeply disappointed her. She let the creature go and slid the door closed behind it.

To her chagrin, the scene she’d run across upon her return meant that she’d have to inform her girls of her situation now, or at least, what her agreement with Szayel allowed her to tell them. It was the deciding factor in her choice to give them the heavily edited version of her visit with the Seventh and with Unohana. At least telling them a few hours before she could finally let Toshiro know they’d succeeded couldn’t hurt, especially if she made it clear to them they needed to keep their mouths shut about it until she had a chance to speak with him. As for the agreement with Starrk and the possibility of Claiming Barragan’s former pet… no, that was too much for her to reveal now, and too sensitive.

In many ways, revealing her pregnancy to her girls over dinner was the easiest part of her day. She told them after they parceled out the food, reserving Toshiro’s portion and the bag of sweets for later and the result was lukewarm food all around as pandemonium engulfed the dining room. Three pairs of arms intent on bestowing three simultaneously astonished and joyful embraces accosted her along with a thousand questions.

It was a balm of sorts on her raw nerves, after dealing with Szayel and his horrid-but-effective recruitment methods. If she closed her eyes, she could pretend that they were back in Hueco Mundo and it was just the four of them once more. Their enthusiasm was genuine and none of them had the kind of hidden agendas, or the talent for subterfuge of those she’d spent time with earlier. Their happiness for her, for the impending addition to their pack knew no bounds and Harribel did her best to answer every query they tossed at her, interrupted only by frequent squeals of unbridled delight. Of course, all of them wanted to care for the cub once he or she was born and that led them off on a tangential argument as to which one of them was more suited for the honour of nanny duty, which grew more heated as the meal went on. Of course, leave it to Sung Sun to say something that made her choke on the last of her fish, though she was able to hide the grimace that followed.

“Oh, maybe we could just ask Szayel for his pet! You’ve seen how good he is with Vindula and Abisara! They’re almost old enough not to need him anymore. We could keep him between the three of us!” she’d suggested slyly, with a flutter of her lashes and her other fraccion gave each other a covetous look that told Harribel this wasn’t the first time they’d heard the idea and that they weren’t actually against it.

“No,” she’d said gently but resolutely, crushing the notion before it could find a real home in their heads. “You may ask him for advice, but he’s not an option.”

_His mate would object to that. I_ _’_ _ve no desire to quarrel with the former Third. There are less painful ways of committing suicide,_ she thought with an inward cringe.

No, bringing Abarai into her household and letting her girls take turns Claiming him was the _last_ thing she wanted to contemplate. Furthermore, neither he nor Szayel would be interested in such an arrangement. Szayel wasn’t open to giving up his children’s best chance at survival if the scheme she’d listened to in the bowels of Szayel’s Division went awry. For now, Abarai remained devoted to both Szayel’s twins and to her predecessor. Contemplating that particular discussion soured her mood and she had to work to keep a smile firmly planted on her face. Harribel quickly seized on Mila Rose’s near gutting of the visiting healer as a means of changing the topic. She patiently informed them of what she suspected, thanks to Szayel’s penchant for reasoning aloud, was going on with the rest of the Numeros. Her tall fraccion blushed a little at her overreaction, but admitted she’d only grown angry when the 4th Division Shinigami had let slip the tests’ purpose.

Harribel set her bowl down and made certain that she had her girls’ attention before she continued.

“So you see, I believe that they’re testing _every_ female Arrancar, whether she has a Claimed male or not. Unohana-Taichou merely wants to help the women among the Arrancar forces. This pregnancy has a number of complicating factors and I may require her help. Mila Rose, you will go to the 4th Division tomorrow and apologize to Unohana-Taichou for your treatment of her officer. The healers are overtaxed as it is and I’m sure Kami’s wife would be upset if one of her needed subordinates was too beaten up to perform his duties.”

Her dusky-skinned follower, cheeks flaming, bowed her head and said “Yes Harribel-sama. I’m sorry.”

Her eyes slid to the other two, who seemed to be having a hard time suppressing titters at Mila Rose’s punishment. Their amusement proved short-lived, thanks to Harribel’s next words.

“You two will accompany her and unless the three of you are needed on the battlefield tomorrow, the three of you will assist Unohana-Taichou with whatever chores she deems necessary.”

That didn’t appear to sit well with them, dampening the mood and she turned her teacup around in her hands before drinking the last of it.

“I understand why you were angry, but you three must consider the long view in this situation. Think of this as a way of ingratiating ourselves with one who will help bring our pack’s cub safely into the world. Much like taking care of Hana endears us to the First, so this will help soothe any ruffled feathers with the 4th Division,” she said, hoping they understood that maintaining good relations with Unohana and her healers was important, especially if Szayel’s plot succeeded. She and her girls would need every ally they could find if it did.

“Yes, Mistress…” they’d chorused and that led to another round of giggling and the airing of competing plans for a nursery, before Mila Rose and Sung Sun excused themselves and cleared the table, while Apache made for the sink to run hot water.

The usual bickering regarding dish duties ensued. Thankfully, tonight’s conversation had been free of any outright fights. Her girls were still reeling from what had happened to Ajuga and what had nearly happened to Hana. Harribel decided that their relatively snark-free behaviour this evening was as much due to her newest fraccion’s absence from the table as her announcement.

That gave her an idea and she quickly moved to the doorway to the kitchen, interrupting Apache and Mila Rose in mid-snarl over who was going to dry. Sung Sun, stuck with disposing of the takeout containers, saw her first and bowed, casting a disapproving glare at the other two.

“I have an important job for all of you this evening. I need you to go to the Ukitake Estate.”

“Of course, Mistress. May we ask what it is?”

Sung Sun turned her lavender eyes on her mistress and Harribel gave the three of them a look that all but ordered them to commit what she was about to say to memory.

“I need you to do three things for me. The first, if Starrk and Ise-Taichou permit it, is to see if Hana is well enough for visitors. I’m sure she’d be glad to see you if she is. Unohana-san will have allowed her to return home today. I’d like you to give her the news regarding my cub yourselves, and let her know that I will be by tomorrow to see her at the hour of her choosing.”

“I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to hear everything about it!” Apache replied, and then bit her lip, as if considering something. “But she’s probably torn up about Ajuga… how happy can she really get?”

It was as if someone had snuffed out the candle providing the only light in the room. Her girls’ faces grew glum and for a minute, the temptation to let them know that Ajuga was most likely still alive and being held hostage to ensure her mother made good on a promise to the enemy was almost too great. Then she clamped down on the urge to share her newfound knowledge, strangling it before the words could form on her tongue.

“All the better to give her what happy news we can,” she answered firmly and frowned at them. They immediately stood at attention, waiting for her to add to their task list. “I also need you to deliver a message to Starrk himself, and no other, not even Lilynette.”

They shared a confused look between them, but agreed when she folded her arms beneath her breasts and favoured them with her best, no-nonsense expression.

“You must tell him that I accept his terms. I will be by tomorrow to discuss the particulars with him at his and Lilynette’s convenience. Come back with a time that works for them and I will make the time to meet him when and where he wishes.”

“Mistress… what’s wrong? Is there something we should know?” Mila Rose inquired, the sudden worry in her voice making Harribel want to clench her fists.

_I wish I could answer that truthfully,_ she inwardly sighed and settled for a shake of her head. “I need to speak to Toshiro this evening about a number of things. I’ll let you know everything later, once Starrk and I finalize the details.”

She hoped that Toshiro’s reaction to finding out she’d offered their unborn cub as a fraccion to the First Espada wouldn’t involve him casting a great deal of ice and snow at her in a rage. That led her to the last thing she needed them to do. Reaching into the pocket of her hakama, she’d pulled out a thin, white paper card with the name of Abarai’s preferred tailor in the garment markets, the one who routinely altered Vindula’s clothes to accommodate the little girl’s wings.

“The hour is not yet too late and I would like you to see to this first. Take one of my spare jackets and have this seamstress use it to design some new pieces for my wardrobe that will provide better… coverage and support. My mask’s new configuration requires a few adjustments in that department,” she sighed regretfully, then chuckled. “It would appear that I must now rely on cloth and bindings.”

Sung Sun took it and carefully tucked it away. She bowed, her smile hidden by her sleeve, with the other two following suit.

“Consider it done, Mistress. Let’s go, ladies! I can’t wait to tell Hana!” she exclaimed and Apache dashed to raid Harribel’s wardrobe. The three blustered out of the door soon after, intent on their mission and leaving their Espada alone with her turbulent thoughts.

On her own for the first time that day, she proceeded to fill the kettle, intent on heating more water. Retrieving the report Szayel had given her from the dining room, Harribel placed it in the middle of the kitchen table, where it sat as a reminder of why she’d signed on to Szayel and Karin’s insane blueprint for a revolution. Going about the task of making something as simple and as domestic as a pot of tea gave her hands something to do and kept them from shaking. Szayel had forbidden her any alcohol for the foreseeable future and warned her about ingesting stimulants stronger than green tea. He hadn’t been very clear on what the upper limits on the latter were though, so she had no idea how many cups that might mean.

Tea had never really struck her as being a ‘calming’ drink, and yet it was all she had to try to quell her nervousness about what the next hour might bring.

The first cup at least served its purpose in helping her clear her head and sort out the various bits of madness she’d been privy to while at the Science and Research Division. She wasn’t sure she had any right to be angry with Grimmjow for withholding the knowledge of Hana and Ajuga’s Royal Blood from her when he’d asked her to take them as fraccion. She’d done something similar with her own cub and Starrk, minus the secrets. Toshiro’s ancestry was free of any noble influences, for which she was grateful. No, she acknowledged, Grimmjow had done what any worried father would and tried to put as many layers of protection between ‘his’ cubs and the unseen dangers their bloodlines posed.

_What a mess_ , she thought and took a sip, trying to determine what she ought to do with her newfound understanding of just how much danger surrounded her pack.

If the assassination attempt failed, as she feared it might, Toshiro and her girls _could_ rightly claim ignorance of the conspiracy. All of Aizen’s wrath would fall on her shoulders and her shoulders alone… in theory. In reality, she couldn’t see Aizen sparing any of them in an effort to root out all of the bits of so-called chaos in his thrice-cursed ‘empire.’ Hana’s position as her fraccion, if Aizen discovered Royal Blood actually flowed through the girl’s veins, would damn all of them.

If she’d had that knowledge before Grimmjow came to her, would she still have made the offer to either girl? As much as she wanted to say ‘no,’ Harribel knew herself too well. Hana’s addition to her pack had added a much-needed element of calm to her household and she would need that calm in the months to come.

If Grimmjow, Starrk, Szayel, and whoever else they’d convinced to join them succeeded, if they rid themselves of Aizen and allowed Karin to take her rightful place in the Royal Realm, they would need Hana to intercede on their behalf with the Shinigami population. To the best of her knowledge, none of her girls had been involved in the rampaging that many of the other Arrancar had done. Their current domicile had been abandoned by its owners when Mila Rose found it and Harribel’s hands were clean in that respect. Unfortunately, none of that would make a difference in the face of a mob bent on revenge.

She would need _both_ Hana and Toshiro to speak for them, to allow her pack to remain in this world once they’d disposed of the controlling power that was Aizen. Depending on one’s perspective of the current situation, they had relatively little time to plan the tyrannicide in a way that would guarantee the conspirators’ own safety and that of their respective packs.

At least there had been one, semi-satisfying portion of the meeting, involving the mystery surrounding Szayel’s pet. The disparity between the strength of the Claim she’d seen on him versus the actual amount of power she estimated Szayel could spare for a Claim had bothered her from the time she’d seen the tattooed Shinigami restored and she wanted an answer from the scientist that didn’t involve a lot of nonsense or dissembling. Harribel bit her lip, recalling the episode…

_When she_ _saw_ _the redhead waiting for them in the large, subterranean room, she stalked up to him and immediately pushed the collar of his black uniform and his under-kosode aside, to expose his shoulders. Before either Abarai or Szayel could open their mouths to protest, she walked around Szayel_ _’_ _s errand boy, even brushing aside the wild fall of hair that concealed the back of his neck. When she was done with her examination and failed to find what she was looking for, Harribel demanded that Szayel make good on the deal they_ _’_ _d come to upstairs._

_The blond then looked up at Abarai, giving him an appraising look in the same manner one might size up a prize stallion and asked,_ _“_ _Which one of our women holds his Claim?_ _”_

_If the mix of shock, chagrin and worry on their faces did not confirm her suspicions, the lack of a recent Claiming scar on Abarai_ _’_ _s person would have been the clincher. She eyed Szayel coolly as she_ _proceeded to point out that the only way someone of Abarai_ _’_ _s strength could remain Claimed by someone of his rank and with his cracked mask would be if Szayel partook of him on a very regular basis. Abarai hadn_ _’_ _t been able to keep the disgust at that idea off of his face and Szayel, after staring at her with newfound respect, pinched the bridge of his nose and muttered something about having overlooked that part of the ruse. A female Arrancar left no scars while Claiming a male for herself, as they poured their energies into the male via their kiss during the act, unless that female was careless and damaged the male with her claws. Szayel seemed to have forgotten that little tidbit of information. The mistake was uncharacteristic and they both knew it._

_She_ _decided to do the Seventh a favour, in exchange for what he_ _’_ _d put her through in the examination room._

_Harribel smiled slightly and used Sonido to get behind Abarai_ _’_ _s left shoulder, before he could turn to stop her. She_ _then sank_ _her teeth into the old, long-healed scar there. Szayel_ _’_ _s jaw dropped, Abarai yelped in pain and surprise, clutching at his shoulder and Harribel delicately wiped away the trace of blood at the corner of her lips with her pinkie finger._

_Her girls_ _’_ _sudden interest in_ _‘_ _sharing_ _’_ _Abarai between them made sense once she tasted a tiny sample of the power within him. It was a plan doomed to fail, but she could see the allure from their point of view. The only real mystery remaining was the woman_ _’_ _s identity and Harribel was at a loss as to who else might have the strength to keep Abarai as tightly Claimed as the vibrant energy surrounding him suggested._

_“That will throw off anyone who sees_ _him minus the top of his uniform. You mentioned that Aizen whipped him once, instead of your daughter, did you not? I_ _’_ _m surprised he didn_ _’_ _t notice the lack of a Claiming mark,_ _” she pointed out._

_Szayel_ _’_ _s expression had shifted from sheepish to a sort of sickly recognition of a major screw-up. In Szayel_ _’_ _s defence, the number of females among the Arrancar population was much smaller than the number of males. While she knew Szayel understood the mechanics, Harribel realized that the scientist, usually confined to his lab, had failed to make the connection between Abarai_ _’_ _s lack of scars and the message that sent to the rest of the Arrancar. The Shinigami glared at her for a few minutes, pressing down on the bite to staunch the bleeding, but smartly backed down. She was grateful for that; the reiatsu she_ _’_ _d felt pulsing beneath her mouth warned her that Abarai was far stronger than he appeared. Szayel began muttering something about needing more sleep and how this sort of thing would never have happened in Hueco Mundo and Harribel decided that if she wanted an answer, she had only one other option. She turned to Abarai._

_“Now why don’_ _t you give me the name of the woman who has Claimed a Taichou-class Shinigami for herself and isn_ _’_ _t bragging about such an accomplishment to the rest of us?_ _”_ _she demanded crisply, staring down the redhead..._

Part of her now regretted asking this, but as Szayel had put it earlier, it wasn’t Abarai’s fault that she didn’t like his response. At least he’d kept his voice steady as he revealed his Mistress’s identity and when she stepped back and considered it, the answer should have been obvious. Harribel was, by far, the strongest female Arrancar in the Seireitei. The others, including her girls, were incapable of subduing someone of Abarai Renji’s strength for long. Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck must have jumped at the chance to secure such a trophy for herself. From the way Abarai spoke of her, the feeling was more than mutual.

Perhaps Szayel’s current lair _wasn_ _’_ _t_ all that different from his old one in Las Noches. Layers upon layers of secrets simmered within it and most of those, if dragged out into the light, might explode in one’s face if one got too close. The Seventh Espada, having gone from the Aspect of Death by Madness to Death by Intoxication, had a lively batch of combustible, poisonous little endeavours brewing, not the least of which was the shell game involving who held whose Claim in Starrk’s household.

This led to more revelations about the lynchpin at the center of the entire muddle.

Harribel would have scoffed at the idea of a human woman casting a Claim if anyone had proposed the idea to her a mere three days ago. Now, it explained so very much about Grimmjow’s gradual change of behaviour over the years, as well as Szayel’s devotion to his Mistress and Karin’s heavy involvement with the Science and Research Division’s workings. That had been less about Ajuga than it had been about covering her tracks and keeping the secret about her Royal lineage from Aizen. It also explained the changes in Szayel, things that couldn’t be pinned on Aizen’s relentless abuse, Unohana’s strictures, the fact he’d managed to find a weirdly compatible and devoted mate in Kurotsuchi Nemu or fatherhood.

Karin and Grimmjow had a true Mating Claim upon one another and she held an additional Claim upon one of the trickiest, sneakiest and most underhanded Arrancar ever to stride the Hueco Mundo’s sands. The respect she had for Karin had increased exponentially. The woman had a right to the Royal Throne, as did Ajuga. Hana did as well through her father, the late Kyoraku Shunsui and Szayel’s warning about how Hana’s lineage endangered Harribel’s pack hadn’t been an exaggeration.

It also didn’t escape Harribel that the den Barragan had picked out for himself, one complete with servants and lush grounds, rightfully belonged to the young Shinigami. If Hana wished to reclaim her family’s domicile from Harribel’s long-time nemesis, the Third would happily help her newest fraccion with that little task. Barragan’s foolish actions with regard to Ggio Vega’s pregnant mate had sealed his fate as far as she was concerned and, rebellion or not, the moment Aizen’s head rolled, Harribel would make sure that Barragan’s skull bounced right behind it.

Szayel could make all of the plans he liked and she would support him. However, the Second Espada’s time was limited, whether the old bastard knew it or not. Harribel had no doubt that Barragan’s cast-off pet would have a great deal in common with her when it came to that rancid walking corpse. She’d wanted to give her girls another task, to speak with the Shinigami while they were at Starrk’s den, but she’d already given them enough to do this evening and as much as she loved each of them, they were easily distracted. It would be best if she assessed this Soi Fon on her own, or spoke with Toshiro.

That was going to be an awkward talk, if her instincts were correct. Because she’d given her word to Szayel, letting Toshiro in on _everything_ that she’d had to sort out today wasn’t going to be possible, or advisable. It troubled her that Szayel had insisted her pet remain in the dark about their planned assassination, mostly because he’d also been right about her shift in the way she’d come to think of him in the last few years.

Harribel brought her teacup to her lips once more. Szayel’s treachery might be extensive, but he’d promised to deliver a final report on her behalf to Aizen, one that would make him hesitant to interfere with her unborn cub. She could bring in Starrk if the report wasn’t enough. She’d done everything she’d done today, including throwing in her lot with Szayel’s rebels, in order to secure her pack’s safety and the safety of her and Toshiro’s cub.

So why, she wondered, did she feel as if she was treading on the thinnest of ice for making these decisions without consulting him? His opinion in this ought not to matter, but the dread in her gut at his possible reaction said otherwise.

The blond, on impulse, stood up to reach for the covered plates and bowls holding Toshiro’s dinner before she realized that the sudden hunger that bloomed within her wasn’t hers. Tiredness and frustration followed closely on its heels. The front door opened and she heard the sound of one extremely tired Taichou divesting himself of his haori and his scarf in the foyer. Rather than have him wandering the house looking for her, she pulled gently on their Claim, willing his footsteps towards the kitchen.

He entered cautiously, looking this way and that, probably for her girls. She supposed his nervousness was her fault, for those early years when she’d been too lenient with them as far as their treatment of him. He’d been through one ambush too many.

Pulling some clean chopsticks and a spoon from one of the drawers, she turned to face him and placed his cold meal on the table and the utensils next to it. She didn’t need the Claim to tell her that, without Hana to remind him to eat, her young Taichou had probably spent his entire day handling problems around the 3rd Division without breaking for a meal. There were still greyish-purple shadows underneath his eyes and if she stayed quiet, she could almost hear his empty stomach complaining. When turquoise orbs went immediately to the spread on the table, as well as the candy bag, rather than lingering on her, she also had to remind herself of the old adage that the shortest route to a man’s heart was through his stomach.

“Eat first. I’ve sent my girls on an errand for this evening. We’ll talk afterwards.”

She didn’t need to tell him twice. Instead, she poured hot water over the tea leaves in the bottom of a cup that matched hers while he deftly heated the reserved meal with Kido. When steam began rising from the food beneath his fingers, Toshiro sighed and did his best to make every morsel in front of him disappear. For someone with such strong reiatsu, putting off rest and meals for too many days in a row was dangerous. It had been over ninety-six hours since the last attack and they couldn’t expect this lull to last much longer.

Thankfully, the hunger afflicting both of them receded as he devoured it all, washing it down with at least three cups of tea. She also saw him eyeing the bag of candy on the kitchen counter, but he didn’t immediately get up and retrieve it. Rather, he pushed the dishes he’d all but licked clean aside and gave her an intent look.

“How is Hana?” he asked, a question she found understandable. She had more free time than he did and had assumed that she would have dropped in on the girl at some point.

“I have not seen her today,” she admitted and when he frowned, quickly added, “I sent my girls to visit her this evening, among other things.”

That appeared to mollify Toshiro a little and he stared down at a spot on the table once occupied by his plate.

“Hmm. Ise-Taichou stopped by at noon, saying she and Lilynette were going to bring her back home today. I’m going to hold off sending the accounting paperwork to her until I’m sure there’s no trace of her head injury.”

“I think that’s wise,” Harribel replied, knowing she was stalling.

His exhaustion, held at bay by hunger, was catching up with him and she was sorely tempted just to let him get the sleep he needed, as she’d done the night before. However, she’d put it off one night and this was news that wouldn’t keep.

“On top of everything else, my 11th Seat is pregnant.”

He said this while reaching up and massaging his temples and not quite managing to keep his irritation in check, which made Harribel pause. He took her silence as permission to provide an explanation.

“I guess she’s going by her Master’s last name now, Lloydght, but Michiko informed me that she’s due in about six months or so and asked to be transferred to the Kido Corps. Then she got a bout of ‘afternoon’ sickness in the middle of gushing about how happy she was, how much she loved her ‘mate’ and tossed her cookies in my wastepaper basket. I’m beginning to pity my Fukutaichou, since I had to leave him with clean-up duty while I oversaw my Sixth and Eighth Seat and the accounting reports.”

Toshiro fixed her with a look that spoke of a man simply fed up with his current lot.

“Thank Kami Hana had the majority of it done, because if I left it up to those two, I’d be swimming in unpaid bills and receipts. Maybe I _can_ justify taking money from the Division budget to pay Orihime to completely heal my 7th Seat,” he grumbled. “Two days without her and the paperwork is in shambles.”

Harribel wasn’t sure if he was upset over the vomiting, Hana’s absence, the accounting reports or the fact he would have to take one of his best Kido practitioners off of the front lines at a time when he was already an officer short. From the percolating mixture of irritability, fatigue and exasperation, it might have been a bit of each. Whatever the cause, he didn’t seem to be in the best of moods.

“Thank you for dinner, Tia. I appreciate it, believe me.”

“You failed to eat lunch again, didn’t you?” she guessed and from the guilty look that crossed his face, she knew she was right.

“There wasn’t much time today. We finally had a few hours to start restocking the Division’s supplies and two teams came back in from the Living World. Both required debriefing, as they ran into some… ugly difficulties while they were there.”

His voice held an ominous note and with his forehead resting on his intertwined fingers, she could tell that ‘ugly’ probably didn’t really do whatever the unseated Shinigami encountered justice.

“Like what?”

He let out a strained sign.

“There’s been another earthquake. This one was big and the number of Pluses they had to process when the resulting tsunamis hit…”

“More than one?”

His head moved in what she presumed was another nod.

“Many, many more. The earthquake levelled buildings up and down the north-eastern coast of Japan’s largest island. About twenty minutes later, the tsunami hit and destroyed whatever was still standing for a ten-mile span inland. It didn’t help that the roads were nearly impassable. Hard to get emergency vehicles into an area under two-and-a-half feet of snow. It’s an early spring here, but it’s been nothing but blizzards for months in the Living World, or at least, in that part of the globe.”

She forgot, for a moment, that the person telling her this was someone who adored cold weather, as he didn’t sound particularly happy about that much snow.

“That’s…”

“Unnatural. Incredibly unnatural. I won’t bore you with what happened to the second team, save to say that the tsunami also hit a group of islands halfway across the Pacific Ocean and did the same thing along their shores. The damage wouldn’t have been as bad if the volcanic eruption occurring on the main island didn’t triple in its severity within hours of the wave coming ashore. The report mentioned that citizens were evacuating as quickly as they could, mostly because of the poisonous gasses and the excessive lava flows.”

He folded his arms on the table, slumping forward. Harribel tried to picture the disasters he described with such gloom and had to sit back as she realized what such a bizarre set of occurrences meant.

“The Realms are slipping out of balance again.”

It was a statement on her part, rather than a question. He heaved another long sigh and then propped his chin on his forearms. The slouched posture, his scowl and the way his eyes drooped made him seem younger than she knew he was, the maturation he’d undergone in the last five years notwithstanding.

“Yes, thanks to the resumption of the Swarm attacks, we simply can’t keep up with the actual work of purification and performing konso. There aren’t enough of us and we lose more Shinigami to every damned insect attack. Either we can keep the Realms balanced or we can fight the Swarm. We can’t do both with the forces we have. Not if we have to waste time turning in meaningless paperwork or suffer physical consequences, courtesy of the First Division,” he snapped angrily and buried his face in his arms.

Then he groaned and ran his fingers through his messy, too-long hair.

“Sorry, Tia. Forget I said that. I just didn’t want Hana getting into trouble with Aizen because her accounting report wasn’t finished before the General injured her.”

She didn’t know what to say to the bitterness in his words and the fact that she’d been subject to similar, barely-contained anger from both Szayel and Abarai directed at Aizen didn’t make it any better. His day had been a disaster, from what she could feel and on any other evening, she would have told him to take a long hot bath and try to get some sleep. However, tonight wasn’t an ordinary evening and she had to find a way to tell him what he needed to know.

“Toshiro… I went to see Szayel today.”

“Has he found any sign of the children?” he asked hopefully, and then looked crestfallen when she shook her head.

“No, he said that wherever they are, they’re out of range of his sensors. They used up the time Kami allotted for a search, to no avail.”

“Shit…” he uttered, “… poor Orihime and Karin have to be nearly mad by now.”

Well, she thought, that was probably an understatement and only the knowledge that Szayel had shared with her about Ajuga’s probable survival, as a hostage to ensure Karin did what she said she would, kept her mouth shut.

“As much as I wish he’d found some trace of them, that wasn’t why I was there,” she explained and pushed the folder across the table. He gave her an odd look and eyed it suspiciously. When she didn’t react, he picked it up and opened it, taking in the sheaf of papers that greeted him.

Harribel knew she should have said something, anything to prepare him for what he was about to learn. Instead, she let Szayel’s pregnancy report, with its color photos, tables and graphs and official looking charts do the talking for her. It didn’t take terribly long for Toshiro to realize what he was reading. She knew the exact moment that understanding hit him, probably while he was on the page that contained the images of their cub, enmeshed in the protective reiryoku barrier.

While she was ready for the shock that thundered its way down the Claim to her, the actual amount of the emotion made her stifle a gasp. He kept reading, going over each bit of information within the file with eyes as large as the dinner plate he’d set to the side. The minutes dragged on, until she lost track of the amount of time he’d spent reading and rereading the papers. His silence disturbed her. Harribel had expected some kind of exclamation or perhaps some verbal indication of his thoughts regarding his future son or daughter. Was he happy about it, or displeased? She didn’t know because Toshiro was flabbergasted and there didn’t seem to be room in their Claim for anything else.

Eventually, he set down the file, his hands clenching into fists and he reached for his teacup. Its contents had gone cold, but he tossed back whatever it had left in it.

“There was a soup stain on one of the sheets. Who, exactly, has seen this report?”

A surprising amount of anger accompanied those words.

“The girls. I had to tell them.”

“I see. I presume that the Seventh Espada, Unohana-Taichou and Aizen know as well.”

_‘_ _Is he angry about the pregnancy? He told me he would help me with this! Did he change his mind about a child?_ ’ She could almost feel the chill in his voice as frost on her skin.

“Yes, as well as Szayel’s pack and the First Espada…”

Toshiro closed his eyes and looked as if he was barely hanging on to his temper. The Claim between them erupted with not only more anger, but with a great deal of hurt that smacked of deep disappointment.

“So I suppose you finally got around to telling _me_. So glad you could be _bothered_ to inform your _pet_ he’s going to be a father! How long have you known?” he demanded harshly.

She stood up and took a step back in astonishment at his reaction. How _dare_ he talk that way, she seethed inwardly. He had _no_ idea what she’d had to go through today, the things she’d had to agree to do! He had no right to act like this!

“Since yesterday. You know I had patrol duty in the evening, which meant I had to postpone my visit to Szayel’s Division until today. Both you and Apache were tired last night, so I decided to wait, until I had something substantive to show you.”

“Dammit, Tia, I should have been included in that little trip!”

“You have your duties…” she shot back and he bared his teeth at her, to her shock.

“I would have goddamned well _made_ the time!” he swore, pushing up from the table. “And why the hell is the First Espada involved? What does _he_ have to do with it?”

Harribel watched as he quickly rounded the table and advanced on her, the hurt at her decision to exclude him from things up until this point throbbing like an open wound. There was also the feeling that she’d betrayed him in some manner, though she didn’t understand why he would feel that way. She had a few seconds to consider using the Claim to force him to stop before a pair of hands clasped her wrists and she found herself pinned against the far kitchen wall by his body.

His eyes mirrored the indignant ache she felt through the Claim as he looked down at her and she wondered when he’d gained the extra few inches in height that allowed him to do so. She could feel his thumbs against the skin of her wrists, her accelerated pulse hammering under his fingers. The rest of him pressed against her, the fabric of his uniform scratching roughly against her bare belly and midriff. She had to work very hard for a few seconds to stay focused on his actions and angry words, rather than the way his frame moulded to hers, one of his feet stepping between her boots and forcing their hips into proximity.

“ _They_ , Toshiro. Lilynette is as much a part of the First as Starrk. They came to see Hana. I remained to speak with Starrk before we went to the Palace, as he had to check in and I needed to receive my assignment. I’ve asked him to take our cub as their fraccion.”

If she expected the answer to make sense, to get him to back down, she was mistaken. His grip on her wrists tightened and she found it difficult to think clearly, when she could feel his racing pulse through both sets of garments. Some instinct-driven portion of her brain was all for baring her throat and letting his latch his teeth just under her jaw, that the strength of the male against her was worthy of such an action. Most of the rest of her was all for taking him by the hair and reminding him of just who he was dealing with and of his place in her pack.

She was his Mistress and he was her pet…

… A pet that, from the horrific amount of pain that barrelled down to her from the link they shared, she’d just hurt very, very deeply.

“WHAT!?!? Why would you do something like that?”

An explanation… she needed an explanation, to appeal to his sense of reason.

“Because Aizen won’t be able to force me to rid myself of the cub if it’s already promised to and protected by an Espada!” she growled back before she tried to free her hands. “I may not be the only one of our women to conceive. Why would our ruler want to grant me leave to bear a child when he could study another, lesser Arrancar?”

“He’s _never_ made such an order before…” he started, and Harribel’s razor-thin patience finally came to an end and snapped.

“None of the others who became pregnant were _Espada_! None of the others could hold their own against the Swarm as _we_ do! I want this child Toshiro and I’ll do whatever I have to, to see that our cub has a chance!” she shouted and that was enough to get him to drop her wrists and move away, as if she’d somehow burned him. She immediately began rubbing her pulse points, the flesh a little numb. Her Hierro had prevented any bruises, but his invasion of her personal space left her rattled.

“And _my_ opinion in all of this didn’t matter to you, did it?” came his resentful retort.

Before she could do or say anything else, her pet moved to the back door and opened it, allowing the chilly night air to invade the warm kitchen. Giving her one last, pained glance, he stepped over the threshold and slammed the door behind him.

The unhappiness he left in his wake, however, remained.


	46. Equillibrium

He didn’t know how long he sat there, slumped sullenly on the stone bench next to the backyard pond and staring at the thin crescent of silvered moon on the water. The frigid air, which had initially calmed him down, now felt as if it had invaded his gut and built an ice fort there.

Even after going over the report, a part of him wanted to go back into the kitchen to retrieve the folder with the images Szayel Apporo Grantz had taken of the child. He wanted to see if he hadn’t been hallucinating.

_His_ child.

Hitsugaya Toshiro didn’t know if he ought to be ecstatic, enraged, overjoyed, upset, disappointed or bewildered about the fact he was going to be a father and that he’d been the last person to be told about it as well as omitted from some very important decisions regarding his future son or daughter. Harribel hadn’t seen fit to take him aside last night to tell him privately and had left him out of the trip to Szayel’s Division… it was as if he’d ceased to be important once he’d given her what she wanted.

Perhaps he ought to add ‘afraid’ to that list, for a multitude of reasons.

Having an actual role in his child’s future was looking a little iffy at present, with the loss of his temper and the confrontation he’d had with his ‘Mistress’. When the initial red haze had cleared, he had looked down at the shocked woman he had mashed against the wall. The most distracting parts of her anatomy were only a few layers of cloth away from his and Toshiro knew he had to get away before he did something wildly inappropriate or incredibly stupid or both. He wasn’t that kind of man and excusing himself was the only responsible thing to do in his present state of mind.

She hadn’t forced him to stay, so maybe she understood why he needed some space to clear his head and to wrestle his out-of-control temper back into submission. It had been straining at its leash all day, riled up by the continuing issues that only having a psychopath with a god-complex in the First Division and on the Throne could produce as well as skipping lunch. He’d thought, when he’d come back to a fraccion-less house and a semi-hot meal waiting for him, that he could relax a little, that the worst of the day was over. How wrong he’d been on that one, he grumbled inwardly.

Letting his anger get the better of him had never really worked for him in the past and this time was no exception. After years of observing Tia Harribel, he knew that she didn’t do things on impulse, or without good reason. That she hadn’t consulted him at all pissed him off to no end, but he had to set that aside for the moment to unravel her reasoning for involving Starrk and Lilynette in this manner.

There had been real fear in her voice when she’d mentioned Aizen and the prospect that the bastard might not let her keep her cub, if carrying it interfered with defending against the Swarm. She believed there was enough of a possibility of it happening to warrant promising their cub to a higher-ranking Espada. Furthermore, she’d done so _before_ going to Szayel’s, which meant that she’d done it before she had any of the information in the folder Szayel had given her. If she _hadn’t_ planned it before she’d done it, it meant that something had frightened her enough the day she’d taken Hana to the 4th Division to get her to throw caution to the wind.

A few deep breaths helped and he ran his fingers through his hair, tugging on the ends. Toshiro swore he would take a knife to it himself if he didn’t get an hour of free time to deal with it. Maybe he’d just hand his 3rd Seat a pair of scissors and pray that the woman didn’t accidentally cut off one of his ears while shearing him of his excess locks.

When she’d mentioned that she wanted to align her pack with the First Espada’s, he’d pictured something different than handing over their firstborn to be another’s fraccion. Staring up at the night sky, Toshiro winced as he recalled her saying that she would do whatever it took, even submitting to Starrk and Lilynette, if it meant additional layers of protection from, as she’d put it, ‘the whims of Kami’. He couldn’t help the way his lip curled when he gave some thought to the Espada that outranked her. Given the choices she’d had, he couldn’t fault her as far as picking Starrk. She hated Barragan and Yammy qualified as a walking nightmare. Starrk and Lilynette, on the other hand, had a thriving pack of well-treated subordinates that genuinely seemed to like both halves of the split-souled Espada.

However, only a fool wouldn’t see the arrangement for what it really was. No one could mess with another’s fraccion, one of the rules Aizen had imposed on his Arrancar minions to keep the infighting between them to a minimum. The Arrancar’s collective worldview seemed to preclude anyone breaking the few rules that those Hollows lived by. Toshiro thought her smarter than to believe _Aizen_ would follow any rules unless doing so suited him, especially with her confessions to him over the years about how little she truly trusted their ruler. This particular strategy depended entirely on whether or not Aizen wanted to avoid angering Starrk, and whether Starrk would get off his cushion to intervene on behalf of a fraccion that hadn’t been born yet.

Toshiro ground the heel of his hand into the furrowed skin between his eyebrows.

There was something he had missed in all of thisThere was something he’d missed in all of this, some key piece of information and he’d just walked out on the one person that might have given it to him. That thought led him to the hurt that he’d shoved onto his mind’s back burner. What had Hyorinmaru spat at him in the bath? Oh, yes… that he’d ‘remained chained to this predator out of choice.’ Toshiro let out a pained sigh at that. The fact he felt troubled that she hadn’t told him until now, the deep, lacerating pain the exclusion had created, could mean only one thing: that the emotional ties ran deeper than he suspected. Toshiro supposed that he had a definitive answer to Hana’s too-personal question as to his feelings for the woman at whom he’d just snarled.

Maybe he’d been foolish to think, after that one, interrupted evening in the bath, that she might consider him as something more than a ‘pet’ after all of these years. Maybe the damned ice dragon had been right about her casting him off once she’d managed to become pregnant. It wasn’t as if she kept to him exclusively either, if the occasional sounds he heard from the master bedroom were any indication of her continued indulgences with her girls. Knowing that the four of them had been together far longer than he’d ever been involved with Harribel watered down any jealousy he felt. Occasionally, he considered his inclusion in her pack as an experiment on her part, to see if she enjoyed being with a male that wasn’t intent on subjugating her in some way.

Toshiro glumly wondered if feeling possessive of her counted as ‘subjugation.’ It wasn’t as if she wasn’t aware of everything he did or felt thanks to her Claim on him, but so far, she’d given him no indication that she minded his growing proprietary outlook towards her, especially in the weeks since she’d told him she was ready to try for that child she’d wanted for so long. Harribel rarely let on what she was thinking and _there_ was the rub. Aside from those few minutes in the bath, when she’d seemed so ready and open to him, before Hana’s sudden tearful appearance shut down any possibility of a second, very-much-wanted-on-his-part round of semi-aquatic sex, she’d held him almost at arm’s length.

There had been two exceptions to that. She had come to him, literally and figuratively, twice in the last two weeks or so, on the nights he hadn’t dragged his carcass home after a battle or worked late. On both occasions, he’d eagerly pulled her from his bedroom doorway and onto his futon, letting her do what she wanted with him. Her enthusiasm matched his in that regard at least, though for reasons he didn’t understand at the time, she’d kept that jacket of hers on while she rode him into near-mindlessness. Otherwise, she’d been her usual, closely guarded self.

If the report was correct, her reluctance to show him a potential weakness regarding her mask made sense now. Unfortunately, it also meant she didn’t entirely trust him, despite having an active Claim on him. His eyes settled on the small ripples that a faint night breeze made over the pond, the moon’s sickle-shape reflection wavering there. At the same time, he heard the back door slowly open, then shut, and measured footsteps in the grass behind him. Harribel’s reiatsu came to a halt a few yards away, leaning against one of the ornamental plum trees that shaded the sitting area where the household would take its meals in the warmer months. Toshiro couldn’t help the twinge of apprehension that made his spine stiffen.

“This is not how I wanted this conversation to go,” he heard her say in that low-pitched, sultry voice of hers, the one that, of late, had a deleterious effect on his ability to concentrate. His response involved reaching up and massaging his forehead as he did an amazingly poor job of keeping the sarcasm to a minimum.

“What did you want, Tia? I’m not sure how it works with the Arrancar, but among Shinigami, the father at least gets to be a little higher on the ‘People to inform about a pregnancy’ pile. He’s usually somewhere beneath his mother-in-law but well above the local grocer.”

Silence followed that and he detected a slight shift in her reiatsu, indicating that she’d shifted her weight to lean a little more heavily against the tree. While Harribel didn’t sound pleased, she also didn’t sound as if she was going to beat him to death with the teakettle.

It was a start. The least he could do, he decided while he kicked his temper into a mental corner, was try to remain civil while they discussed this.

“Circumstance dictated otherwise. I learned of our success by accident, when I asked Kami’s wife if she could help me with the changes in my mask over the last two weeks. She ran some tests yesterday and examined me with Kido. Unohana-Taichou told me that she would wait to report my pregnancy to Kami until today, giving me time to ask Starrk and Lilynette for help. It was fortuitous that both of them accompanied Ise-Taichou to see Hana yesterday. Otherwise, I might not have been able to make the arrangements I did. From the moment that she discovered I was pregnant, she reeked of fear. It surrounded her, like a cloud of flies. I’m not certain if she was afraid for me, or for the child or both.”

The news that Unohana was worried gave Toshiro pause, before he squared his shoulders and turned around on the bench to face her. It might be one thing for Harribel to imagine danger where there might not be any, but if Unohana was concerned enough about Harribel’s situation that she’d let her normally calm demeanor slip, then there might be more to all of this than what was in Szayel’s dryly-written report.

He expected her to be staring back at him, but instead, she’d turned her eyes on the new growth of some flower bulbs one of her girls, Sung Sun maybe, had planted near the base of the tree last fall.

“I’d intended to tell you after I returned from patrol but…”

…the search for any sign of where the Swarm might have taken Ajuga and Diaemus had gone on longer than he’d expected. Even with Apache’s enhanced senses, they’d found nothing substantial and he’d been half-asleep on his feet when they’d made it home. He’d had little enough to put in the report the search generated, which pained him greatly. Toshiro hadn’t known Ajuga very well, but he had seen what the loss of the two hybrids had done to Hana and Harribel’s fraccion. Toshiro had to admit that he probably hadn’t been in the best of shape to process anything significant at that time of night, let alone such an announcement.

“Fine,” he conceded and leaned forward. “Why did you not include me in your mandatory visit to Szayel’s Division? My 11th Seat is Claimed and she asked my Fukutaichou for an hour today to make the trip with the one who Claimed her. Why did you choose to do this alone?”

This earned him a chuckle that held very little in the way of humor. Her sea-green eyes finally met his and for the first time he could see the reproach in them, as well as a number of murky shadows that he couldn’t attribute to the semi-darkness or the faint moonlight. The fear was still there as well. If anything, there seemed to be more of it when he brought up Szayel.

“You spend the day feeding me frustration, anxiety, stress of all sorts and anger at the loss of Hana’s aid and wonder why I declined to add to your list of worries? I’m used to dealing with difficulties on my own. I’m _not_ used to having to find solutions to problems while the one I’ve Claimed expresses endless negativity. You usually handle things in a more measured fashion. Today was different,” she replied with a hint of scorn. Before he could open his mouth, she added, “Fate forced my hand as far as informing my girls. They were ready to tear apart the 4th Division officer who came to conduct pregnancy tests on every Arrancar female, including my fraccion. I made it back from Szayel’s den just in time. They did not realize that the discovery of my pregnancy was the cause of it and I felt it prudent to inform them before things could get out of hand. Mila Rose will offer a formal apology to Unohana-Taichou tomorrow for roughing up her underling.”

Toshiro’s response involved a dropped jaw, which he quickly snapped shut. He was aware of the tests conducted on all Claimed Shinigami females. One of Unohana’s people had come by yesterday and informed him of the order, but he’d had no idea Unohana had mandated pregnancy tests for all female Arrancar, even those without ‘pets,’ in addition to the Shinigami. Embarrassment came hard on the heels of surprise. For all anyone else knew, he was the captive boy toy of _every_ Arrancar female under this roof, not just the Third Espada. He could see why Unohana had ordered her fraccion tested as well.

“You were the one late for dinner. I sent my girls on various errands tonight, so that I would have a chance to speak with you alone.”

He had the good grace to acknowledge the last part, adding it to the growing pile of things about which he ought to feel like a complete heel. There were times that he forgot, usually while in the middle of Division business, that she could ‘tune in’ to any adverse emotions he might experience. It was the downside of their link, Toshiro supposed, at least for her. He also had to accept that the events of the last two days hadn’t exactly worked in their favour as far as chiselling out time for the two of them to talk.

“I still would have made the time…” he tried to say and she held up one hand.

“You have your duties as a Taichou, Toshiro, and Kami hates it when there is chaos in his Empire. I didn’t want you punished for failing him in some way that would not allow me to intervene on your behalf.”

She was probably referring to the accounting report Hana had left unfinished. In that she was correct; Aizen wouldn’t have let him off the hook for a late or inaccurate report and because Harribel left his Division to him, there would be no way she could speak up for him if Aizen decided to make an example of him. While Aizen might not want to tick off Starrk, Toshiro doubted that he would have any qualms about incurring Harribel’s anger by punishing her pet for failing him.

Worse, he might force _Harribel_ to punish him, as he’d witnessed with Karin and Szayel.

_Shit_ , he thought, finally understanding where she was coming from as far as her reluctance to pull him away from his work, even for an hour.

“Besides, it was better that you weren’t there today,” she said softly, an edge to her voice that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He got the feeling that the visit with Szayel hadn’t gone well for some reason.

“Why not?”

Her hesitation in answering only added to his unease.

“Szayel… agreed, after some discussion, to play up the ‘uniqueness’ of my pregnancy. The loss of a ‘specimen,’ as he refers to all of the cubs he’s monitored over the years, would distress him to no end.”

“His choice of words stinks,” Toshiro growled, despite himself. The idea of his child as one of Szayel’s ‘test subjects’ kindled a surprising amount of rage in him, as well as a few murderous thoughts involving the Seventh Espada. The vague way she’d answered also didn’t sit right with him.

“What aren’t you telling me? Dammit, Tia… this is exactly why I’m angry!”

“I can’t tell you because it isn’t my place to do so. It’s between Szayel and me and no other.”

“That’s my point!” he snapped and got to his feet, spreading his hands wide. The shadow his standing form created in the faint moonlight stretched before him, merging with that of the tree and the woman beneath it. The same faint light limed the white of her clothing and the memory of a summer evening five years gone came back to him. She’d filled him in on her plans for him on that night and he considered that the beginning of whatever it was that existed between them. He had no idea what to call it: enhanced friendship, a mutual admiration, a working-and-occasionally-sexual association didn’t really do it justice, but with a cub on the way, this whole ‘friends with benefits’ thing would have to change, at least as far as he was concerned. He slowly walked towards her, his arms spread and his palms up. The last thing he wanted was a repeat of the scene in the kitchen.

“You’re used to being the one in charge. I understand that. You want to protect your pack. I get that as well. However, this is _our_ cub we’re talking about here! You told me you wanted a strong _mate_ , Tia, strong enough to protect you if it came down to it. Well, here I am, oh Third Espada!” He emphasized her title a little more caustically than he meant to sound, but it was hard not to be furious. “I will personally tear apart _anyone_ who decides to hurt either you or our child, or Hana or even those three immature, ill-mannered geese you’ve taken under your wing and that’s the end of it!”

By now, there were only a few feet between them. He folded his arms across his chest, waiting for some response from her.

“Does your 11th Seat have long black hair? Is her Master a blond male, half a foot taller than she?”

The question threw him off-balance and he had to grope about for the proper reply.

“Yes. Her Claimer often shows up to walk her home. Long blond hair and an entirely too-salacious look about him for my tastes. Can’t seem to keep his hands off of her either. Not that she seems to mind much…” he grumbled. She listened and then closed her eyes and cocked her head to the side.

“Franque Lloydgth, created to replace one of the fraccion Barragan sacrificed during the War. I saw the two of them today, leaving Szayel’s den. From their expressions, and from what you told me this evening, it appears they’re both very happy about their future child. Did she come back to work after her appointment with Szayel?”

Toshiro was at a loss as to what to say to that. He’d been too busy with other things today, after his initial meeting with Michiko and her upset stomach, to find out if she’d returned to her duties. He couldn’t recall her checking back in with him. Maybe his Fukutaichou had seen her, since the two were friends.

“I’ve no idea, to tell you the truth,” he admitted after a few minutes. He could see her nod at that.

“I doubt she did. I’m sure her Master… no, her ‘mate,’ if I read their body language correctly, had other plans for her that afternoon.”

“Not an image I needed of my 11th Seat” he sighed. “I’ll have a chat with her tomorrow. Why would you bring them up?”

“Because Lloydght seemed ecstatic. I’d hoped…”

She trailed off, leaving the rest of it unsaid. Toshiro didn’t need to be able to read minds to know what the rest of that sentence might have contained.

“It was a foolish notion. You’re not the demonstrative sort, Toshiro.”

He caught his frustration with her by the tail and beat it to death before it could lead him to make a very big mistake. Instead, he took a deep breath, and then another. Reaching out, he tentatively put his hand on one of the wrists he’d gripped earlier. She didn’t move it away, but the pulse he could feel beneath her skin was hardly what he would call ‘calm,’ despite her cool exterior.

“I suppose,” he said carefully “I should ask what am I to you, Tia? Do you still consider me a ‘pet?’”

She didn’t reply right away, but eventually, Toshiro saw her shake her head, her messy blonde hair moving back and forth in the shadows.

“Then what…?”

“There’s more to my agreement with Starrk and Lilynette. I’ve told no one but Szayel about it, because he knows the situation. I’ve already sent the girls to Starrk’s den with my answer, though I wanted to speak with you first. I had little choice in this. You were late getting home and by now Aizen will have a copy of Szayel’s report. There might not be time tomorrow to speak with him. He might even summon me tonight, once he reads it.”

Gingerly, Toshiro took her wrist and drew her back towards the bench. Once out of the plum tree’s shadows, her distress became apparent. There was a great deal of regret in her expression too and he decided to grit his teeth, swallow his pride and get her to explain things. Once he’d settled them both on the bench, within sight and sound of the pond, Harribel seemed to relax a little.

“Starrk’s help won’t be free,” she cautioned. The Espada started in on her story and by the time she was done, Toshiro’s fingers clenched hers, mostly to keep both sets of their hands from shaking with rage.

Hitsugaya Toshiro wanted the Second Espada dead, beheaded, his putrid corpse buried in seki-seki stone and the earth above the fucker’s tomb salted so that nothing would grow there for a thousand years. That he would do such a thing to a pregnant woman and to his own fraccion sickened him. Unfortunately, indulging in murderous thoughts wasn’t going to help the situation. When she got to the meat of the deal with the First Espada, Toshiro could only listen at the details and close his eyes in relief that not only was the First concerned about Soi Fon, but that Harribel still had a free Claim slot. The fact she’d wanted to talk to him of this before making a decision, even if she’d had to give in and make it without him, was also very telling, even if she wasn’t aware of it.

“Tia, go ahead and Claim her! Save her life! You don’t need my permission for that!”

She drew back, giving him a look that was both critical and puzzled.

“Your reactions confuse me. You’re angry because I didn’t inform you of my pregnancy first, as I might have a mate, but when I tell you that I plan to Claim another, you don’t care how it will affect you as long as doing so spares one of your former Taichou’s lives. There is little logic to your train of thought.”

“I suppose not,” he admitted, and her eyes settled on their joined hands. Toshiro, realizing just how tightly he clasped them, eased off on the pressure.

“Would you say the same if the Seventh decided he no longer wanted his red-haired pet, the one with the tattoos?”

That made him frown and for the first time, real jealousy blossomed in him. Toshiro wasn’t quite quick enough in snuffing it out, however. She made a ‘humph’ sound when she detected it and he understood the hypocrisy of his response. The idea of her with another female didn’t bother him nearly as much as another male, especially one that was taller than he and broader in the shoulders. The old insecurity about his perpetually youthful appearance and formerly short stature, as well as what he could only describe as childish territoriality, made him grimace.

“It would depend on why you were doing it,” he replied and she moved her hands from beneath his, covering his pale fingers with her darker ones.

“I would not replace you, Toshiro. I admire much about you, when you manage to keep your temper in check,” she admonished and he couldn’t deny that he had interpreted things badly earlier in the evening. “You are exhausted and in a foul mood to boot, but I didn’t dare wait another day, lest you find out about this from another source. I truly wished you could have been with me today, but I cannot give Aizen any reason to punish you. You’ve read the report. If this cub is to survive…”

“Tia, you can’t tell me that this is just about the cub. What do you want of me… or rather, how do you see me? Tell me the truth.”

“If I were a Shinigami, would you have involved yourself with me, Hitsugaya Toshiro?”

As with the question regarding his 11th Seat, Toshiro had to scramble with the conversation’s change of direction. He’d also had it with her avoidance of definitive answers.

“If you were one of us, I would have to claw my way through the pack of admirers I’m sure you would attract, as Matsumoto-Fukutaichou had at her beck and call. If I’d managed that and you deigned to speak to me, I might have summoned up the nerve to ask you to tea. I would have assumed nothing beyond that. The choice to take me up on any such proposal would have been yours alone to make.”

His turquoise eyes, in turn, narrowed and bored into hers.

“If I were an Arrancar or a Vasto Lorde as you were, would you have involved yourself with _me_?”

He figured that the turnabout inquiry was fair, given all of her evasiveness. Her shoulders slumped a little and she broke eye contact, staring down at their fingers.

“You would not be ‘you’ if you were one of ‘us,’ as you put it. We would have fought and either I would have defeated and killed you, or you would have defeated me and Claimed me. If the latter, I would have tried to make it a mutual Mating Claim during the time you kept me beneath you, given your power. If I managed it, we would be able to feel everything one another felt. There… would be no niceties like tea and choice about it.”

It was Toshiro’s turn to blush partly at the thought of what that kind of ‘fight’ might look like. He decided that he liked the animalistic images a little too much for his own good and told his inner Neanderthal to take a walk into the nearest icy river.

“Why is the word ‘mates’ so damned hard for you to say?”

“Because you can’t be one. You can’t cast a Claim around me as I can around you.”

“I’m calling bullshit on that. There’s a sizeable piece of my reiryoku and a cub in your belly that says otherwise.”

She looked up sharply just as he grasped her hands and got to his feet, pulling her with him. One hand reached around her waist and brought her body hard against his. The other squirmed between their respective chests and seized the zipper tab on her jacket. He could feel her fingers digging into his biceps, but again, she didn’t seem inclined to use her Claim to stop him from opening the garment so that he could see what he’d only so far read in the pages of the Seventh Espada’s report.

When he finally laid eyes on her bare face, the straight nose and full lips he’d only seen in her secondary form, Toshiro had to swallow a few times to get his throat to work properly. Otherwise, all he’d be able to would involve croaking. Letting his eyes wander a little farther down made his cheeks burn as he took in a pair of truly magnificent breasts, with nipples the color of burnished bronze rapidly hardening in reaction to the cold air. The breath she sucked in at their sudden exposure only served to enhance the effect.

“Amazing, Tia…” he heard himself whisper and trailed his fingers from the portion of her mask that still surrounded her throat to the dusky skin covering her sternum. They moved over skin that felt warmer with every passing second, until they skimmed below her right breast and cupped it. His thumb moved to brush across the tip of a nipple while the hand he had at her back did its best to crush her against him.

Her eyes drifted closed and the slight tilt of her head upward was all he needed as far as permission to kiss her, tentatively at first and then more forcefully as what his fingers were doing made her part her lips for air. A few tugs on the collar and the white fabric across her back as well as the cuffs of her long sleeves and the upper portion of her uniform soon lay discarded on the grass. Having access to her mouth and a pair of heretofore-inaccessible erogenous zones was going to his head.

“Toshiro…” she moaned, one hand reaching up to rake though his hair. He let his left hand drop down to the curve of her ass and slowly pressed her lower body forward, letting her feel the evidence of just how much he liked her mask’s new boundaries.

“Inside,” he hoarsely ordered when she responded with shallow, circling hip movements that did nothing for his mental state and everything for the burgeoning erection straining against his tightly wound undergarments. When her tongue slid against his he growled and broke off the kiss, deciding that if he were going to do this, to prove that she could trust him as a partner and equal, he would have to show her that he deserved the promotion.

It wasn’t, he thought with the part of his brain that was still capable of reason, as if he hadn’t had to prove her was up to such challenges in the past. He’d had to be three times as good at the duties of a Taichou in order for his superiors and elders to acknowledge him as being half their equal, thanks to his age. Of course, if she wanted a mate that would be a bit of a beast at times, he would show her he was perfectly capable of suspending any ‘niceties’ as well.

He reached down and in the next second, he had her body slung over his shoulder, one hand clutching the backs of her legs and the other helping balance her hips where they met his collarbone. He moved at breakneck speed, only stopping to reach for the handle on the back door before they were though it, past the kitchen and Shunpo eating up the short distance to his room. By the time the Espada in his grasp realized what he was doing and where he was going, they were in his spartanly furnished bedchamber and he’d dropped her in the middle of his futon. His bed wasn’t the overly large, plush thing she shared with her girls, but it would do for now.

She barely had a chance to push her torso up with her arms and try to scramble back to look at him before he’d stripped to his waist, leaving his discarded kosode and under-kosode on the floor in a pile of black and white fabric. His obi followed it and once it was gone, his hakama slithered from his hips while he crawled forward onto the large bed.

“You’re wearing far too many things, Tia. I think that needs to change.”

He started with her boots, pulling them from her feet and throwing them carelessly over his shoulders to the floor. The footwear made two satisfactory ‘thuds’ as they made contact with the wood. Once those were gone, he ran his hands up her white-clad thighs, working his way between them to rest his fingertips on the black sash that kept what passed for a hakama on her body. The damn thing always looked as if it was going to slide off, as a number of his easily distracted subordinates had commented when they thought he was out of earshot. Toshiro knew how tightly she usually secured that sash, having watched her dress on those mornings when she’d spent the night in his bed.

If he had his way, she’d be spending much more of her time in it. As such, he tapped the knot to the side and held her hazy green gaze with his turquoise one.

“Untie this. Now.”

“You _presume_ to give me orders?” she finally asked, her tone carrying a frosty warning. He smirked down at her, folding his arms across his bare chest, letting her take in the scope of the changes he’d undergone in the last five years.

“If it isn’t off in the next ten seconds, you’ll have to send your fraccion out for another clothing run, because I swear, I will cut this off with the closest sharp object. I have plans for what’s underneath it.”

If it was possible, Toshiro thought he saw her eyes get just a little bit bigger, before she slowly reached down and teased the knot loose. Once he saw the tightly tied fabric give a little, he reached up and pulled it roughly from around her hips and away from her moving fingers. It went somewhere off to the right and all that was left was the mass of ruined white pleats and folds that had been her hakama.

His eyes didn’t leave hers as he moved forward, his palms pushing her long legs apart to make room for his taller frame. At any moment, he expected his body to freeze, for her to grab control of him and halt his advance, but the unspoken order never came. Instead, she allowed him to put one hand on either side of her shoulders and his knees against her inner thighs, preventing her from closing them.

“Tia, I don’t want to be treated like a ‘pet’ or worse, a child. You need me to protect our cub and as such, you will no longer cut me out of any decisions you make about him or her, ever again. I don’t give a damn about my status in front of ‘Kami’ but I will have an equal say in what happens with our child. We both know I could break your Claim with enough effort, so this issue you have about returning a Claim doesn’t fly with me.”

It was as close to an ultimatum as he wanted to get right now and her eyes narrowed a little more at his tone. Toshiro didn’t want to test her as far as her pride went. Instead, his features softened and he gave her a concession.

“What I told you in the bath is still true.”

“What was that, exactly?”

“That I do not want to lose this. I do not want to lose what we have between us and I’m not just talking about the baby. I do not want to lose _you_ , Tia Harribel.”

He reached over and traced her open mouth, the pads of his fingers gliding over her newly-exposed chin, her throat and down to her navel. Then they moved a little lower, making circular movements over the lower belly. When she shivered, he leaned in, until his lips brushed hers and he could detect the faint, floral scent of the tea she’d drunk earlier on her breath.

With that, his fingertips ghosted below the white fabric around her hips, seeking out the heat he knew was there. She made a small noise in the back of her throat when he found it and Toshiro swallowed it, running the tip of his tongue briefly over her upper lip before her mouth opened much wider, granting him access. The tea-flavored kiss deepened and something similar happened as his fingers teased her folds apart, dipping between her nether lips and easing past the tight muscles of her opening. It didn’t take long for one finger to give way to two as she slickened. Soon his tongue and his fingers were working in tandem, rubbing along the roof of her mouth and seeking out that one rough spot on her inner walls that usually made her gasp when stroked.

When her thighs began to shiver, he broke off the kiss and his lips journeyed south, lingering on both of her breasts. Her nipples, protected by their bone coverings for so long, were almost too sensitive, too responsive. The lightest of touches made her back arch. A nip made her hips buck against his hand and he had to press the heel of his palm against her pelvic bone to keep her from writhing. Eventually, he let his tongue wander lower, until his head hovered above her navel. In impulse, he dropped a kiss just below it and looked up to see her eyes tightly shut, one fist gripping a pillow and the other gasping a handful of her hair.

“I might be yours, but you’re also mine, Tia. You need me and I need you and he or she” and here he dropped another lingering kiss on her belly, “needs the both of us.”

He removed his fingers from her and pulled the material from around her waist, shifting just enough to get her legs untangled from her hakama. Toshiro didn’t particularly care what happened to the last piece of her uniform, but he still had enough presence of mind to keep from tearing it from her like a brute. He’d already had a few brushes with his baser instincts this evening and he wouldn’t allow another chance for them to run loose.

Still, the temptation to overwhelm her was there. If he knew it, no doubt she did as well. When the Claim between them remained unused and when her eyes slowly opened to regard him, he couldn’t help swallowing nervously at what he was about to initiate.

His reluctance made little sense to her, especially when she’d put up no resistance.

Perhaps he was still troubled about what had happened in the kitchen. It had only served to underscore to her just how powerful a motivating force pride was to the males of any species, be they Arrancar, human or Shinigami. She could feel the lingering remorse for his initial reaction and the trace of relief that they’d managed to come to an understanding about the delay in telling him about their cub.

All of those emotions were smothered by a great deal of lust, enough to make her head spin as he started to break down any objections she might have had with regard to make-up sex. Before the Winter War, she would have gutted any male foolish enough to think he had a chance of possessing her, let alone ordering her to undress. Barragan’s dogged pursuit of her and her girls had steeled her resolve to remain her own mistress. Gazing up at him from beneath her lashes, she couldn’t picture the young man whose hands were creeping up her legs abusing the authority a change in his status, from ‘pet’ to ‘mate’ would grant him.

Instead, he seemed to want to demonstrate in as detailed a way as possible, the benefits of doing so.

The corner of her recently uncovered mouth quirked up.

“Then show me why I should let you take me in this manner, why I should remain beneath you.”

She didn’t mean to say it as teasingly as she did. Harribel didn’t usually play the coquette, but once it was out of her mouth, she received a jolt of surprise from him, followed by a wave of determination as well as no small amount of desire. The next thing she felt was his heated breath on her sex and his tongue stroking along her labia.

After that, it was all she could do to keep her nails from gouging through his scalp or causing deep rents in his shoulders as his lips and tongue drove her to near madness. His hands kept her bent legs parted and her core exposed, his fingers tracing circular patterns on the sensitive flesh of her thighs. She wanted to push up, to force as much of his mouth on her and in her as she could. Toshiro’s tongue alternated between circling and flicking the rapidly swelling, sensitive bud at the apex of her slit and plunging into her channel. Just when the sensations building within her could bubble over, he switched tactics and sensitive spots, backing her down from the brink only to drag her close once more. It was both glorious and maddening, to be kept on the edge for so long without relief.

In the meantime, she could tell that he was using every ounce of self-control he had not to rush this. Her awareness of just how constricting his undergarments had become grew with each passing second, but his position made it impossible for her to do anything about it. The lapping, wet sounds his mouth made as he sucked, nibbled and otherwise primed her filled her ears. Her breaths came in shallow gasps while the tip of his tongue tormented her clit, sending electric shocks up the backs of her legs and straight to her spine. A second sensation joined it and she felt at least two of his fingers slip into her core again, twisting, stroking, rubbing…

His lips enclosed the little jewel of flesh and the resulting suction as well as the advance and retreat of his fingers undid her completely. For a moment she thought she hovered, looking down at a dark-skinned woman, her toes splayed, a head of pale hair bobbing at the joining of her shamelessly spread, shaking thighs. The woman’s sharp fingernails sank into the meat of her lover’s left shoulder and his right bicep the moment she came. She could hear a piercing shriek that ended in a drawn-out, needy moan and knew that she had made it as wave after wave of pleasure surged through her. The fingers inside her continued their work despite the tightening of the muscles around them and while he eased off the suction, the tip of his tongue delicately stroked her over-sensitized clit.

“AHHH!!! Toshiro!!!” she screamed again as the pad of his middle finger rubbed the rough spot on the wall of her channel, creating another round of wicked convulsions that began in the flesh surrounding his digits and expanded to wrack her entire body.

He gave her the small bud at the top of her folds one last, long brush with his tongue and withdrew his fingers, leaving her breathless and her limbs drained of energy. Her nails were wet and she felt him reach up and take the one hand gripping his bicep with slippery fingertips. Through half-lidded eyes, she saw thin rivulets of blood trickle from each of the four small wounds her claws had put in his pale epidermis, before he brought the ends of her fingers up to his mouth. Oxygen finally reached her brain as he drew both sets of fingers, his and hers, past his lips, and lavished them with his tongue.

“You taste like the sea, Tia,” he said in a husky, hunger-filled voice and the intensity of it turned her muscles to water. Then he was moving forward, pinning her in place in much the same way he’d done in the kitchen, save that what hit her now was an overwhelming desire to finish what he’d started. He released her hand, reaching down to remove the long winding strips of his fundoshi. Pushing her torso from the pillows, Harribel watched as he pulled the last bits of clothing from his body without taking his eyes off her.

She’d never felt as naked as she was now, nor as exposed. She’d taken him plenty of times, to renew her Claim or, in the last five years, to bring them both a kind of equitable pleasure on the nights she didn’t spend with her girls. As if reading her thoughts, he began to crawl over her prone body, his knees moving her thighs even farther apart. He wiped his mouth and chin with the back of one hand and cupped her face with the other, all the while daring her to move a muscle with his eyes. The iron-rich aroma of his blood, a heady smell that mixed with the scent of their mutual arousal, filled the air and Harribel found her mouth watered as he drew nearer.

It was a ridiculously primitive thing for her to do, a throwback to her time as an Adjuchas. When he leaned down to press his lips against the side of her neck, she took hold of his arm and lapped at the drying trail of red leading back up to the spot where her nails had broken through his skin. Toshiro hissed as her tongue eventually made it up to the thin, crescent-shaped marks. As distracted as she was with the metallic taste, it wasn’t until she felt the head of his cock slipping up and down at her entrance that she pulled back to see him staring down at her.

They remained like that, eyes locked and the question he’d asked of her came back to haunt her. This night had been fifteen years in the planning and she had to admit, they suited one another in so many other ways. It was only one more thing that would bind her little dragon to her, to their cub, such a small concession in the grand scheme of things. He might tighten his coils around her as she sank her teeth into him to get a better grip, but nothing short of death that would separate them after this.

All it took was a faint nod from her for him to ease his hips forward, sliding the head of his shaft past her flushed inner folds. Inch by inch, his thick length pushed into her slick silky heat.

_Not such a ‘little’ dragon anymore,_ Harribel dazedly admitted when he’d finally seated himself in her, marvelling at how much she could feel he enjoyed that slow dive into her via the Claim.

“Tell me… don’t want to hurt you or the cub… if I do something wrong…” he panted and she chose the best and only way she knew to get him to stop worrying. Wrapping her arms around his shoulders and trying to avoid the spots where she’d inadvertently wounded him, she caught up his mouth in a fervent kiss while clamping down deliberately on his cock with her inner muscles.

She drank in the cry he made and for a moment, she wondered if that one little thing had been enough to force him over the edge. Harribel repeated her below-the-waist bit of coercion and he got the hint, thrusting slowly into her and letting her insides caress him. Toshiro’s paler hands found her breasts and if she’d been unnerved by the sensitivity of her nipples to the cold air outside, that was nothing compared to the incredible sensation of his fingers lightly tracing and pinching them in conjunction with the friction from his thrusts.

“This change in your mask… Kami, please tell me it’s permanent,” he whimpered against the corner of her mouth. It took her passion-fogged brain a moment to figure out what he’d said and when the words registered, she pulled back just enough to meet his eyes once more. They were pleasure-glazed and on a whim, she bore down on his cock a third time, making him shudder and curse under his breath.

“Fuck, Tia, do that again and I…”

He all but sobbed the warning and Harribel brushed some of the white hair that had fallen across his face out of his eyes. The need in their aquamarine depths told her he was having a difficult time restraining himself, that he simply wanted to let go and take her as hard and as fast as he thought was safe. She knew she probably wasn’t doing much better, as small, needy sounds kept making their way past her kiss-swollen lips every time the base of his cock and the coarse white curls ground into her. Add that to the pleasure that she got from his hands on her breasts and she was well on her way to flying apart at the seams, starting with the warm wet flesh stretched around him.

“I hope it will remain this way. I’ve… often wondered what this,” she murmured out her reply and briefly traced the fingers that busied themselves with her nipples while contracting her inner muscles, a little more gently this time, “would feel like.”

“You feel so damned good… gods, I can’t…”

His hips were moving them both steadily towards a conclusion that might very well shake her to pieces if she let it. The idea of him stopping for any reason appalled her and her hands smoothed their way down his back, this time settling on his ass. She shifted her legs until her feet found the mattress and she started lifting her hips up to meet his. The results were spectacular. Harribel watched as his hazy eyes widened and he sped up, hitting her core and her clit with each downward plunge.

“Please… please, Toshiro… please don’t stop… need you… deeper…” she chanted and he obliged.

There was no need to refresh his Claim now, having done recently, but it thrilled her to know that the next time she did so, it would be just like this, while she wrapped her very being and reiatsu around him. In turn, she would make sure they had enough time for him to allow him to thoroughly take her, as many times as he needed and as many times as she wanted, from this position. Her hands splayed across his backside as she imagined Claiming him this way, urging him to go faster and deeper as her third climax thundered towards her.

“TIA!!!” He wailed her name as if beseeching some deity for mercy. Scorching heat bloomed inside her as he went rigid in her arms. His last few strokes were erratic, powerful, and the final one broke the wall keeping her from unraveling around him. Toshiro’s mouth nipped at her lips and his tongue slipped and slid against her own, drinking in each sound that she made. His shaking hands had left her breasts to grip her hips as he flooded her channel with cum, his cock pulsing in time with her orgasm-fueled clenching, the tremors prolonging things for both of them.

“Perfect…” Harribel thought she heard him say shakily against her lips through the bliss fogging her brain. She so wanted this to last, so wanted his body to remain where it was, pressing her down into the bed. Eventually though, his softening length slipped from her followed by a rush of wetness, staining the sheets beneath them. Toshiro brushed sweaty blond hair from her forehead, falling to her side and pulling her close so that she was half-draped across him. She filled her panting lungs with air that tasted of the shattering round of sex they’d just shared and while it was tempting to open a window, Harribel preferred to stay warm. He apparently had the same idea.

“I wasn’t aware I’d given you permission to use me as blanket,” she said quietly. His arms tightened around her and she was certain one of his hands moved down to her lower back.

“Then you shouldn’t have skin this soft.”

“Are all Shinigami males this impudent with their mates?” she growled and he cracked open one eye to look up at her.

“I’m not sure. I thought it was a compliment, Tia. But thanks for the affirmation…”

Harribel snorted, but decided to let it go and curled up next to him. It was hard to keep her eyes open when the Claim between them held such ridiculous levels of exhaustion. The day hadn’t been an easy one for either of them, but the ending was more than satisfactory and Toshiro was half-asleep already.

If only she could forget that this moment of contentment was fleeting, that there was a storm coming and that she would have to decide what her next move would be as far as Szayel’s revolution went.

“Do you want a son or a daughter?” he inquired suddenly, casting a stone into the flock of dark thoughts that had surrounded her. They scattered and Harribel spared a moment for the question before she reached down and dragged the covering sheet and blankets up and around them.

“I will settle for ‘healthy’. Anything more than that would be asking too much of providence,” she answered reluctantly, not wanting to jinx things. He stretched out beneath her, the sound of a few of his vertebrae popping greeting her ears before his fingers found her chin. Toshiro tilted her head up for a quick kiss that turned out to be a little more involved than either truly intended. When the young man currently serving as a body pillow broke it off, she sighed and tucked her head into the crook of his neck.

“I seem destined to be surrounded by complicated women. I’m willing to bet it’s a girl.”

He said this with a small laugh at the end of it and she frowned.

“Complicated?”

He nodded, shifting until he got comfortable with the arrangement of their limbs.

“Hmm. You’ll be Claiming Soi Fon. Kami only knows what Barragan’s done to her. I don’t foresee this being an easy fix. There’s also the cub she’s carrying to consider. That might bring you into conflict with the Fifth, if what the First told you about Lindocruz and his wife adopting Vega’s cub is true.”

“The Second is foulness personified…” she snarled, and then caught herself before she could add that, if she had her way, his days as a breathing entity were numbered.

“Agreed. It will be interesting to watch his reaction when he sees her standing with your household.”

Harribel couldn’t help the smile that spread across her face when she envisioned what he described. The Aspect of Death by Old Age might just have a coronary, which would suit her just fine. The demented Espada had unknowingly handed her a beautifully crafted weapon with a built-in grudge to use against him and if anyone thought that she wouldn’t take advantage of that, he or she was the worst sort of fool.

“What is she like, this Soi Fon?”

Toshiro yawned hugely and his answer came out at the end of it.

“Before the War? You didn’t want to anger her. She was the Taichou of the 2nd Division and the commander of the Onmitsukidō and she took both roles very seriously. Also a bit of a stickler for the rules, seeing as how she ran the internal investigation forces. Not an enemy I’d want to face.”

Harribel laughed softly at the image his words conjured. The black-robed imbecile had all but sharpened the blade she would employ to slit his throat. Unfortunately, she also knew she was getting ahead of herself.

“I can’t Claim her until she’s borne her cub and I’ll have to be careful that doing so will not harm ours,” she said after mulling over his assessment of the woman’s power. She’d seen the hateful glares Soi Fon had directed towards her so-called ‘Master’ and it wouldn’t take much beyond the promise of revenge to secure the loyalty of the newest member of her household. Barragan was unlikely to find many willing allies among the lower-ranked Arrancar. Most of the Numeros knew by now that indenturing oneself to the Second was a one-way trip down a dark hole. In addition, Barragan had already used up both of his Claim slots and she doubted that his two ‘followers’ would lift a finger to help him unless he used their Claims to force them to do so.

“What if Vega’s Claim fades before that? Can Starrk protect her until she gives birth?”

That was something she hadn’t actually considered. Starrk’s pack was only a temporary haven and it would cease to be that once Ggio’s Claim had worn off.

“I’m not sure if he can. Aizen’s laws are absolute. Szayel might be able to find a solution though,” she replied, mentally adding _and if he can find one for me, finding one for her should be simple. Butterfly my ass… Szayel’s base animal ought to be a weasel._

“Let’s hope so. I think it would be wise…” he began when another yawn interrupted what he was going to say. He picked up where he’d left off, sounding as if he was fighting to stay awake long enough to finish the discussion “if we keep your intention to Claim Soi Fon a secret for now, unless there’s no way around it. Barragan might have kicked her out, but…”

She nodded grimly, understanding where he was going with this. If the Second found out that Harribel intended to add the woman to her ranks, he might decide to end Soi Fon’s life before Harribel could Claim her. While Aizen had forbidden them from fighting over Claiming rights, there were plenty of ways for Barragan to engineer his former ‘pet’s’ death, especially if she was forced onto the battlefield.

“Agreed. I’ll be dropping by the Ukitake Estate tomorrow and I’ll speak with Starrk then about keeping it under wraps.”

“Good idea…” he muttered and favoured her with a sleepy smile, “and you should probably have a talk with your girls about discretion too. _All_ of them,” he added wryly. Her confusion must have been readily apparent, because he let out a long, heavy sigh and sank a little deeper into the futon.

“Hana came out ‘n…asked me, point blank… if I loved you… Poor girl turned red… ‘s a radish...”

She watched him drift off while alternately murmuring and yawning the words into her shoulder. Toshiro’s breathing evened out and deepened as he surrendered to post-coital weariness. Shaking her head with rueful amusement, Tia Harribel pressed a kiss to the corner of her mate’s mouth and laid her head against his chest, listening as his heartbeat calmed and any tension not dispelled when he’d soundly fucked her into the bedding drained away.

The blond wished sleep would come as easily to her. There were too many things on her mind, too many problems and precious little time to sort all of it out before circumstances threw her pack into the thick of things. Carefully untangling herself from him for a moment, she made sure the lamp was out and burrowed in next to him. Reaching up, she allowed her fingers to stroke back a long section of pale hair from his face.

_Forgive me for keeping this last batch of secrets from you,_ she thought tiredly as she contemplated how peaceful he looked, _at least until I know if this plot of Szayel’s will work. Until then, you’re better off if I leave you in the dark._

His hair was at that shaggy, unruly stage right now, but a few more months’ growth would allow him to tie it back, a style that she suspected might flatter him. His face had lost some of its soft boyishness over the years, his cheekbones and jawline becoming more distinct as he’d not only grown into his power, but the good looks his younger visage promised. Letting it go, her fingertips traveled from his collarbone, past pectoral and stomach muscles honed by fighting in concert with her to land on the spot just above his hipbone.

He hadn’t been lying when he said he would rip apart anything that tried to hurt her, or those she considered ‘hers’. Ah well, the difficult issues she faced would be waiting for her the morning. There was little sense in losing sleep over things that weren’t going to solve themselves in the span of a few hours. The countdown to Aizen’s, and by association, Barragan’s destruction would start at sun-up and getting some rest sounded like a fine idea. As she nodded off, the ghost of a smile played about her lips as she reflected on the last thing out of his mouth that evening.

_I wonder how he answered Hana’s question. I’m sure hers weren’t the only red cheeks in the room._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter, we see what befell Ajuga and Diaemus.


	47. Frozen Flight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of my favourite chapters.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Szayel hesitantly spoke up as he followed in Karin’s wake as she stormed down the corridors. Her answer wasn’t exactly a surprise, but at least it was honest.

“No, but it’s the only thing I can think of to do right now. We’ve tried everything else.”

“Don’t bother. If _I_ can’t get her to change her mind, then _you_ sure as fuck ain’t gonna. Besides, I like this plan. If the bastard shows up I can rip parts of his body off, slowly, until he tells us what he did with them,” Grimmjow growled behind Szayel, cracking his knuckles as he did so.

She’d gotten over her mental breakdown and Karin had a new set of goals that didn’t involve crying. The first was to get Ajuga and Diaemus back in one piece, respectively. The second involved killing Aizen. After that, everyone was going to live happily-ever-after if they knew what was good for them. She gritted her teeth as she thought about each separate item on that list. The sooner she put a check mark next to each one, the better. There would be no more battles against giant, soul-consuming, acid-spitting bugs. There would be no more vexing mind games with Aizen, trying to keep Szayel safe. There would be no more need to hide who and what she was. This shit would end, even if she had to kick everyone’s asses herself and park her own on the Spirit King’s Throne… after they put Aizen’s corpse six feet underground.

_Easy,_ she mentally scolded herself. _Don’t get too hot-headed and pull the trigger too early. Better take things one step at a time._

The first and most important thing she had to accomplish involved taking back the kids, or at least, finding out if they were alright. Doing so was important, lest anyone think to delve into the possible reasons _why_ the Swarm might want Ajuga. Ironically, the Swarm’s abduction of Diaemus along with her daughter worked in their favour. That the Swarm had made off with both muddied the waters for an observer trying to deduce the General’s sudden interest in the Human/Hollow hybrids.

That was why she was on her way to visit Mushi. She hoped that the insects would still be open to negotiation and not just toss her clueless daughter on the Spirit King’s Throne. Karin didn’t even want to consider what Aizen would do to them all in such a worst-case scenario.

They reached the holding chamber and Karin forced herself to take a deep breath. It wouldn’t do to go into the pen ranting and raving. It wasn’t Mushi’s fault that the General had attacked her daughter. The Scarab had done nothing more than pass on a message for a meeting that she had wanted. Mushi was very much like a child… a large, armoured child, and it would be unfair to attack the Portal Scarab for an outcome over which it had no control. She would not behave like Aizen.

Szayel and Grimmjow continued up to the observation deck and once there, buzzed her through. As if knowing something had happened, Mushi didn’t come running up to her chittering excitedly the way she usually did. If anything, the Scarab seemed deeply depressed and huddled in a corner. It issued a ‘chirp’ in place of its usual greeting, but even that was subdued. Had Karin been furious with the creature, there was no way she could have stayed that way once she saw the dejected looking thing.

She supposed that the silver lining in all of this was she now knew Mushi understood her, and could both translate and communicate for her with her fellows. Karin’s initial meeting with ‘Zee’ would never have taken place if that hadn’t been the case.

“Mushi,” she called gently, holding a hand out coaxingly, fixing what she hoped was a forgiving look on her features.

After a moment of hesitation, Mushi moved forward and rested her head against Karin’s palm, chittering softly. Karin suspected there was an apology in there somewhere and she briefly rubbed the smooth chitinous plate below her palm in a soothing fashion before proceeding.

“I need to know, is my daughter safe? Are they both okay?” Karin asked.

Mushi gave a bright chirp, one that could only mean affirmation, and Karin let out a long breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding in. Through her link with Grimmjow, she felt his relief as well. She knew he was upset, but she wasn’t certain how much of their joint despair had actually been his until now. He might be a tough son of a bitch on the outside, but on the inside he loved and cared for his family deeply.

“They will be kept safe, held as collateral until I fulfill my end of our agreement. Is this right?” she inquired, trying to find out if, unbeknownst to her, Zee had changed the rules now that he had Ajuga.

Another cheerful chirp and Karin felt most of her apprehension slip away. In fact, in a roundabout way, this development was almost for the better. Ajuga and Diaemus would now be a very safe distance away from the fighting when the revolt happened. In addition, the way things were coming together, that uprising would happen much sooner than they originally intended. The only detail left to be hammered out involved enrolling the Escapees in their scheme. Hopefully, Yoruichi would be by soon as she really didn’t want to wait until late summer when Nel came to refresh Renji’s Claim. That was far too long for the children to remain in the Swarm’s hands. Furthermore, the longer they held off on their plans, the more likely it was Aizen would discover those plans, or something would happen to throw a major wrench into them.

“Alright. I am still pissed that my daughter was taken, but as long as she is safe I won’t pound Zee into a large pile of ichor for betraying my trust like that so quickly,” she grumbled and scowled.

She swore Mushi actually chuckled at her venom. Perhaps Zee had quite the reputation amongst the rest of the Swarm’s ‘troops’ and the lowly minion thought the prospect of seeing the arrogant General getting his ass kicked was funny.

Had she been in Zee’s place, well… Karin wouldn’t have taken _anyone_ hostage, since that wasn’t her nature. However, she had no doubt that Szayel wouldn’t have hesitated if it meant he’d get what he wanted out of the act, nor would several others. That included her mate. After all, Grimmjow had originally taken her to use as bait to lure her brother to the Seireitei. Karin also admitted that she had no idea what kind of conditions the Swarm were coping with in their particular ‘heaven’ or in the Living Realm to which that heaven was attached. If it was anything like the damage in the Living World, thanks to the imbalances created by Aizen’s selfish and insane actions, she could see why Zee might be tempted to find a shortcut as far as fixing the problem.

“I will let you know the moment I see Yoruichi and get the last part of the plan together with those who are still free. Will you pass all that onto Zee?” she requested.

That earned Karin some more happy-sounding chittering and a few satisfied ‘clicks’ that she swore might have the equivalent of a salute.

“Okay,” she breathed, feeling infinitely better. She couldn’t wait to share the news with Orihime. Her friend would be relieved to know their children were safe and sound, and that would probably help bring Ulquiorra further into their circle of conspirators, as well as give him some peace of mind.

Karin had thought about demanding the children’s release, but she already knew Zee would never agree to such terms. Patting Mushi one more time, she turned to leave. It was enough to know her daughter and Diaemus were safe, at least for now. She had nearly reached the door when Mushi started complaining loudly, but Karin ignored the Portal Scarab. There were a million plans they needed to put into motion and they had delayed long enough. The sooner they could dispose of Aizen, the sooner they could start rescuing those that were being tortured. Yammy’s name sat near the top of her hit list, right after Aizen.

The door closed behind her, shutting out Mushi’s increasingly frantic chittering. They had a revolution to plan and a tyrant’s life to end.

The first thing Ajuga noticed when she regained consciousness was that she was ridiculously cold. Freezing her fur covered ass off would have been a better description.

The second thing she noticed was the pain.

Her entire left side, depending on how she shifted, alternated between tingling numbness and sharp, shooting pain. However, nothing compared to the throbbing coming from her broken arm. The cold made the pain worse, even as it kept the inflammation down. Her entire body shivered thanks to the freezing air and those tiny, involuntary movements didn’t help her injuries. Forcing her eyes open, she saw a nondescript, frost-glazed, grey wall that looked as if something had tunnelled it out of rock. The same sort of rock made up the floor on which she lay. There was enough light to see by, but Ajuga had no idea where it came from, other than somewhere overhead.

For a long while, staring at the wall was all she could manage. The sub-zero temperature didn’t help. In fact, all she wanted to do was to drift off, to go back to sleep again. Doing so while she was this cold was dangerous, so she forced her eyes to stay open. Eventually, the confusion slowly dribbled away and she began to remember each occurrence that lead up to her capture. Blinking her eyes furiously to get the last of the fuzziness out of her vision, she slowly did a more thorough inventory of her injuries.

She already knew about her broken arm. No one had bothered to set it. The back of her head still throbbed slightly from the blow the General had landed on her. Ajuga supposed that any strike strong enough to knock her unconscious wasn’t one from which she would quickly recover. She had no idea how long she had been down and she definitely had no idea where she was now. At present, all she could deduce was that she was in a frigid cell, dug out of rock. Maybe that meant they were far to the North, and underground if the rock around them was bedrock. There was something heavy attached to both of her ankles and when she looked down she took note of a thick metal chain connecting to two metal shackles on her legs. Those, she thought sourly, would make walking and escaping very difficult.

Ajuga also discovered that she wasn’t alone.

Diaemus lay in a heap, not far away. His wings were still horribly twisted and missing a chunk from where he had been forced to remove the membrane or risk being eaten alive by acid. He sported the same shackle-and-chain device on his ankles as well. There was no sign of Hana and Ajuga spared a moment to hope that her Shinigami friend was safe. With his head turned to the side, she had no idea if he was awake or not.

_Please be alright… please be alright…_ she prayed silently.

“Diaemus,” she called weakly, forcing herself to move towards him, ignoring how much the shuffling jarred her injuries. The chains clanked as she crawled across the floor to reach his side.

Diaemus let out a soft groan but didn’t stir otherwise. The only other noise in the cell was that of their teeth chattering. Steam coated her face as she laboured in the chilled air. Looking closer, she saw that a similar cloud popped into existence as Diaemus shallowly exhaled, a sure sign he was alive. That made all of the pain she felt as she inched her way closer worth it.

Once Ajuga made it to him, she reached her good arm out to give his shoulder a shake, calling his name once more while studying the cell they were in, looking for any weaknesses to use as a means of escape. She saw nothing on first glance, but that didn’t mean there might not be a hidden weakness and two sets of eyes were better than one.

Diaemus finally cracked open an eye, letting out a groan as he shifted. That groan quickly turned into a sharp cry of pain when he moved in such a way that put weight on his heavily-damaged wings. The resulting jolt to his system also jerked him fully awake and Ajuga backed off as much as she could. Her instincts told her to give him some space, at least until he was able to recognize who she was and that she was no danger to him.

“Ajuga? Where are we?” Diaemus gasped once he settled down. Ajuga went from being worried about him to being mildly irritated that getting his initial reaction under control took him all of fifteen seconds.

“The Swarm took us, but I don’t know where or why. I guess this is some sort of cell,” she answered, casting her gaze about the bare room once more as if expecting something about it to have changed in the last few minutes. The walls and floor remained as they were.

“So they learned the truth,” Diaemus whispered softly, almost too softly for even her sharper hearing to pick up. Clearly, he hadn’t intended her to hear what he said.

Confused, Ajuga peered closer at him.

“What truth?” she demanded, when he didn’t seem like he was going to expound on his odd statement.

Diaemus ignored her and began an examination of his wings. Her eyes narrowed further. She got the impression that he busied himself with them not because he wanted to see the extent of the damage, but because he didn’t want to look at or talk to her.

“Diaemus, what the hell do you mean ‘about the truth?’” she growled dangerously.

Diaemus gave up on his mangled wings with a resigned sigh, although Ajuga wasn’t sure how much of it was because she’d pressured him to answer the question and how much of it was because of his injuries.

“It is not my place to say anything,” he declared firmly, perhaps with a hint of apology as well.

Ajuga felt like wringing his neck with his own tail, but if it was not his place to speak than it was not his place to speak, and Ajuga had enough respect for Diaemus that she wouldn’t force the issue, at least, not right now.

“What is your status?” Diaemus asked, changing the subject. She winced.

“My arm is horribly broken and hurts like a fucking bitch. The back of my neck hurts where that bastard hit me, and I am bloody well freezing,” she answered sharply, trying to ignore how her teeth chattered as she gave him her personal damage report. “You?”

“My wings are broken far beyond use and, like you, I find it rather cold in here,” he answered. “It’s interesting though…”

“What do you mean, ‘interesting?’”

Diaemus sounded thoughtful, which told Ajuga he’d noticed something important, despite his pained expression. Reaching up, he combed his tangled coppery hair back and away from his face with his fingers.

“Normally, our Hierros would protect us from feeling such undue cold, which means that we’re either in an artificially cooled place for some reason, such as a freezer chamber or a refrigerator, or…”

“Or what?” Ajuga prompted.

“…or we’re far to the north, much farther north than anyone’s searched at any rate, and the temperature is much lower than what we’re used to dealing with. If we’re in the former, there will be cold air coming from outside of the cell. Maybe…”

“…we can find the entry point. It’s an automatic weak spot. Good thinking!” she finished, glad to have something to do other than concentrate on her injuries.

They sat in silence for a while, both of them quietly examining the cell’s barren interior. Whoever had made it knew what they were doing. Ajuga couldn’t even locate the door. There simply _had_ to be one, she reasoned. After all, someone would have had to use it to dump them in here. Unfortunately, the seams and hinges that would have given away the location of a possible exit route blended into the walls’ rough texture. She couldn’t detect any air movement either, which scuttled Diaemus’s first theory about the Swarm stashing them in an icebox, or worse, a meat locker. That, oddly, made her feel a little better. She didn’t relish the notion that the Swarm had secreted them away as a snack for later.

Ajuga hugged her knees to her chest with one arm, trying to conserve what body heat she could and not aggravate her throbbing, broken arm. She nearly jumped out of her mask and fur when Diaemus scooted to sit beside her.

“What are you doing?” she rasped out suspiciously, doing her best to ignore how badly her teeth clicked together when she tried to speak.

“It would be prudent in this situation to pool what meagre resources we have,” he replied, as if it ought to be obvious what he was doing in her personal space.

She stared at him.

He sighed.

“It would be best if we were to combine body heat and thus, use up less energy,” he explained, a hint of exasperation in his voice.

Her first thought was a resounding, ‘Hell No!’ but it didn’t last long as she continued to shiver and her teeth and jaw started to ache. Besides, judging by the barely-concealed distaste on his face, the thought of cuddling with her was just as repulsive to him as it was to her. Still, she reluctantly admitted he had a point. It wasn’t like there was anyone around to see them do it and if they ever got out of this, she didn’t think she’d have to work too hard to get him to keep quiet about it and thus preserve both of their dignities.

“Fine,” she agreed reluctantly. “But I swear if you breathe a word of this to anyone, not even my mother will be able to find your remains.”

Maybe there was just a touch too much vehemence in her words, but Diaemus didn’t seem to put much stock in the threat. He nodded in agreement and finished closing the distance between them until they were nestled side by side with one of his busted wings draped around her, the other coming around him to make a sort of tent. It took a while, but eventually it did warm up enough in their little shelter to give her teeth a rest. Her shivering subsided somewhat as well.

“So, what do you think they want with us?” Ajuga asked this later when the silence between them finally reached the point where it started to feel oppressive.

Diaemus didn’t answer her question and when she glanced his way, she saw he’d closed his eyes and his breathing was deep and even. She shouldn’t be surprised he’d fallen asleep. It would take a great deal of rest to heal his trashed wings.

_Either that or a lot of reiatsu and blood,_ she thought dryly.

She didn’t know when she fell asleep herself, only that when she awoke she found herself laying on top of one of Diaemus’ wings with him curled around her and his other wing folded over them. She might have jerked away from him, but two things made her reconsider. First, it was much warmer with him at her back and with his wing spread over her like a much-needed blanket, and second, he was still fast asleep. Considering their situation, and how tightly he had pressed himself against her, she decided to let him continue to rest. Besides, moving around roughly would serve to injure him further and she was surprised he let her rest on top of one of his wings as it was. He eventually stirred some time later and pulled her closer against him in a semi-dazed state as he tried to keep them both warm.

“You know, I can just hear Hana-chan laughing at us,” she said once she was certain he was fully awake.

“Hana has more class than that,” Diaemus responded. “Lilynette would be the one jeering,” he added after a moment.

She couldn’t help but to snicker at that, knowing he was completely right. The rumours would be all over the city in milliseconds if Lilynette were to see them like this. The result would involve Diaemus flying for his life while her father threatened to tear him into a million pieces while her mother shook her head and tried to rein in Grimmjow. Orihime would probably start gushing about grandchildren and Ulquiorra… well, she couldn’t see her sometimes-teacher doing anything but rubbing his forehead with something like long-suffering, well-concealed irritation aimed at her father. It was that or he might simply order his son to cease any relations with her in that one-note voice he liked to use. It might be worth it, she decided, to start such a rumour, just to see how things played out.

“So, what do you think they will do with us?”

She knew he had to be wondering about this as well.

“I don’t know,” he answered after giving it some thought. “But I doubt they will kill you. They seemed to know your mother.”

That was true. The General _had_ known her mother, right down to her maiden and mated names. Looking back, Ajuga found it rather odd that the Swarm seemed _personally_ acquainted with her mother. It was something she was going to ask her parents about the minute she got home.

_If we get home_ , she thought and then kicked herself. Of course they were going to get home. She had to keep telling herself that. To do otherwise was to give in and Ajuga wasn’t about to do that.

“Well, maybe we will get lucky and that General will come in and do a monologue about his evil plans and all that shit. We’ll pretend to be bored out of our minds while we’re secretly scheming to use his plot’s weaknesses against him to escape,” she offered.

Diaemus went still behind her before she heard him shake his head and his chest rumbled slightly against her back. Kami’s-ass-on-a-stick, was he actually laughing? No sound came from him, but giving in to laughter was the best explanation she could manage for his body’s shaking.

_‘I think he is!’_ she thought with no small amount of wonder.

They remained curled up together, retaining as much heat as they could. With nothing to do in the cold, bare room, Ajuga found herself drifting in and out of slumber. After a long bout of sleep, she woke up to the sight of some terrified Plus shaking and sobbing in a corner of the cell. She blinked at their new cellmate in confusion before a horrible thought crossed her mind.

“Is that supposed to be…. food?” she asked in disbelief.

“I believe so,” Diaemus answered, indicating he was awake.

Ajuga’s nose wrinkled in disgust. She wouldn’t eat anything so pathetic and would probably get more nutrition from chewing on the walls around them. The Swarm evidently lacked the most basic knowledge of Hollows and they clearly had no idea what sustained hybrids like Ajuga and Diaemus, nor what they required to live. Otherwise, they never would have offered two Arrancar a meal that even the most low-level Hollow would snub and label ‘unsatisfactory.’

“Yeah, I think I would sooner starve to death than eat something so feeble,” she scoffed.

“Hmm,” Diaemus agreed and let his head fall, content to ignore the Swarm’s idea of ‘lunch.’

She drifted in and out of wakefulness a few times, and each time she could feel both of them getting weaker. Their captors replaced the first Plus with another soul at some point, and if anything, this one had even less appeal. They had to eat, to replenish their reiatsu and that meant that they had to get out of here before they lost any more strength to hunger and the ever-present cold. The shackles would be a problem and Diaemus’s wings were incapable of flight. Her claws could probably shred the leg restraints easily, but they were still in the heart of a Swarm stronghold and she was not so overconfident to think they’d easily escape such a place in their present condition. One acid bath and it would be over. She had no idea where they were or how deeply their cell was ensconced in the fortress. She was fast, but the General was faster. She had no way of knowing how many there were here, nor did she know how strong she and Diaemus were compared to the one who had taken her down.

_Diaemus could outfly them, but he would need to let his wings finish healing. He needs reiatsu and food for that…_

She paused at the thought and it led her down a mental path that at first, she didn’t want to follow. However, when no other option seemed feasible, she thought she might as well toss the idea out there.

“Diaemus, how much energy would you need to finish healing your wings and bust out of here?”

He stiffened behind her at the tentative question, his mind quickly perceiving what she was trying to say, or rather, suggest.

“No,” he answered simply, his voice curt.

“Yes,” she hissed back, not wanting him to dismiss the idea outright over something as stupid as chivalry. “If you can escape, you can let the others know the location of the Swarm base. We have been looking for it forever. You could lead the others back here quickly enough too, depending on how far north this place is!”

“You won’t last long in this cold if I do that,” he pointed out. “I’d have to take you with me.”

“You can fly better unencumbered, Diaemus,” she countered. “If you take me, they’ll just catch us again and stick us back in this cell, and I can’t fight efficiently with a broken arm. I will just slow you down. You know I’m right!”

He was silent for a minute before speaking again.

“You realize what I will need to do to you, don’t you?” he questioned softly.

Another shiver ran down her spine, but she told herself that it was better than letting the both of them slowly starve and freeze to death. It would be a minor victory against the Swarm, but at this point she would take any chance to snub them that she could.

“Yes. Do it,” she insisted, shifting to lie on her back and baring her throat.

Blue eyes met green, and for once, she saw a world of emotion swirling in them instead of the carefully-cultivated front he usually wore. Diaemus didn’t want to do this. She didn’t want to do it either, not really, but the alternative was to waste away in what would quickly become a deathtrap if they didn’t try something. She simply had to trust that he wouldn’t take too much from her, or drink too deeply. His eyes suddenly hardened in determination and he nodded briefly, as if he’d weighed all of the options and found that this offered them their best shot at freedom. “Very well,” he agreed.

Ajuga braced herself for the pain she expected when he bit her, and couldn’t help trembling when his tongue lavished her throat in preparation. She never felt his fangs slide into her skin, but she certainly noticed it when he started to feed on her. Her back arched up off the floor as her energy drained out of her, along with her blood. Her mouth opened in a soundless scream when he bit down harder, increasing the flow and began swallowing mouthfuls of her reiatsu.

_He must have been hungrier than he’d let on_ , she thought dimly, staring at the ceiling while her vision tunnelled. _How much body heat did he lose through his wings, trying to keep us both warm? He probably used up an awful lot of strength…_

Her world narrowed to the feel of her companion sucking away her reserves. Ajuga’s perceptions grew disjointed and off-kilter the more he took. Then the not-unpleasant sensation of his mouth and teeth on her throat ceased and she drifted. As if from a distance, she heard Diaemus roar as his restored wings spread out behind him, the sound of them much like that of a banner’s fabric cracking in a strong wind. There were two metallic ‘CLANGS’ against the far wall of the cell, and Ajuga figured he’d cast off the shackles and chains.

_Good_ , she thought fuzzily. He certainly didn’t need those weighing him down.

She became aware of an explosion overhead… a cero maybe… and then he was gone in a rush of icy air that buffeted her dark hair and ruffled her fur. Bits of rock and soil rained down on her as well. A minute passed in silence before insect voices buzzed loudly in alarm and those she suspected must be guards flooded her room. Staring up through the circular hole Diaemus created during his exit, she thought she saw him hover in the night sky, an inky-black spot against a background of unfamiliar stars for a split second before it disappeared. The slower-moving Locusts swarmed behind him in pursuit, but he was already long gone.

Hands were suddenly on her, pressing rags against her neck, trying to staunch the wound. Those looked as if they’d been torn from the clothing of the Plus huddling in the corner. Ajuga wondered why they bothered, as her blood was already coagulating, despite the residue from Diaemus’ saliva. _Idiots_ , she decided. The real damage wasn’t from the blood loss, but from the power Diaemus had drained from her, taking every spare drop of reiatsu she might have used to heal herself and her injuries. She just hoped it was enough.

“Ztupid beazt! Eating zere own kind! Animalz!” a derisive voice buzzed faintly in her ears.

She might have laughed at his assessment of what had just happened, if she wasn’t beyond exhaustion. She wondered how they could know her mother and yet know absolutely nothing about how to provide a proper meal for someone with both human and Arrancar halves. Of course, if they had, she and Diaemus would have broken out of this place long before now. As it was, she could only hope he made it back to the Seireitei.

“Do not let her die,” another said sharply, practically barking the command. Ajuga vaguely recognized it as the voice of the same General who captured them. “She’s far too important.”

Important? Important for what? It didn’t matter. Diaemus took far more than she had anticipated, probably more than he had meant. She would be lucky to live through this, but at least her parents would learn where the Swarm were and could avenge her death.

_Fly Diaemus! Fly fast. Fly far. Fly until your wings feel like they are ready to break, and then fly some more!_ she bade him in her head, her consciousness losing the battle with the encroaching darkness.

Her vision finally went black, and the last thing she heard was the frantic buzzing of the Generals that surrounded her on all sides, probably wondering why she had a faint-but-satisfied, ‘take that’ sort of grin on her face.

As if hearing her soundless encouragement, Diaemus flew, his wings straining as he struggled to put as much distance between himself, the inevitable pursuers, and the Swarm base as possible. He had a few advantages in this – the fact that the Swarm didn’t do well in darkness as well as his innate speed - and he intended to make the most of them. From the constellations overhead and their positions, he discovered the Swarm’s base was much farther north than they’d guessed. The drifts of crusted snow and ice interrupted by stands of pine forest confirmed it. Picking out the pole star, he made his best guess as to the Seireitei’s location and put his back to that one, fixed point in the night sky. Once he’d properly aligned his body, he beat his healed wings for all they were worth and made for home.

The tangy, delicious taste of Ajuga’s blood almost _sparkled_ on his tongue. It stained his mouth and he licked it down, not wanting to waste a drop of it. Her borrowed reiatsu sang in his veins, lending him the strength to not only up his velocity, but keep going as well. Time was of the essence. He had no way of knowing exactly how long the Swarm had held them captive, but he estimated it had been at least three, maybe four days. In addition, he recognized none of the landmarks below him, which told him he might be more than three or four days away from his goal. The Swarm traveled by portals, so it was entirely possible that they might try to intercept him before he could reach familiar territory.

Diaemus greedily lapped up the last droplets clinging to his lips and pressed on.

He flew until his wings ached, and then kept flying. He got the occasional break during the days that followed, riding any updrafts or favourable air currents he could find as long as they didn’t blow him too far east or westward. Using those to conserve energy during the day, he pulled out all the stops at night and poured on the speed until he grew accustom to the screaming of his back and chest muscles. Eventually, they simply grew numb. Diaemus ignored the need for rest, shoving it away every time it threatened to overtake him. He’d had plenty of rest in the cell with Ajuga and the thought of her, still trapped in that frigid place, remained his primary motivation. The longer Ajuga languished in the Swarm’s custody, the weaker she would become and even though he’d tried to restrain himself while drinking, the taste of both her blood and her reiatsu had tempted him far more than he wanted to admit.

_It was only the hunger and the pain from my injuries_ , he insisted as he caught a crosswind that would help him rest for a few precious minutes, before he made the time up and then some in a swift dive. _It was nothing more than that._

Once again, Ajuga had talked him into doing something risky and convinced him that it was the best course of action. Regrettably, this time his friend was probably right. She’d been brave enough to put her throat beneath his fangs in the hope that he’d be able to fetch a rescue party. He’d be worse than trash, as his father like to put it, if he let her down now. Diaemus wouldn’t, _couldn’t_ let that happen.

He flew to the south in a jagged course as the sun rose and set, rose and set and then rose and set yet again, using the stars to navigate or correct his course once night fell. Even as he began to flounder, his strength finally starting to peter out, he continued to force his way forwards through another night of desperate flight. Finally, on the fourth daybreak following his escape, a bright glare far to the southwest blinded him and he blearily raised one hand to shield his eyes. His body, finally sapped of all the energy he’d pilfered from Ajuga, struggled to stay aloft as he tried to determine what the shining object was.

His back muscles, pushed past the point of endurance, chose that moment to seize up in a bout of cramping. He knew then that they’d taken him as far as they could. No amount of coaxing or praying would unlock them and he rapidly began to lose altitude. Diaemus also snarled in frustration as he realized that the piercing light he’d seen came from the morning sun reflecting off white buildings and more importantly, a giant glass dome.

It then became a struggle to mitigate his swift descent as the treetops rushed up to greet him.


	48. My Son's Return

He’d been up since the wee hours of the morning, setting out into the darkness on his assigned patrol after checking in with a yawning Shinigami. As sharp rays of light broke over the eastern horizon, one of Ulquiorra’s hands rose to shield his eyes from the bright glare. Pupils contracting, he gave a small hiss as he felt them water involuntarily. The transition from using his night-vision to coping with sudden daylight always brought about this reaction. Sometimes he missed the ever-present twilight of Las Noches. A patrol conducted in Hueco Mundo didn’t include such irritants as ‘dawn.’

As much as he disliked it, the stinging in his eyes _was_ a brief distraction from the bleak chill he harboured within him. The Swarm had taken his son well over a week ago and Orihime’s misery knew no bounds. A never-ending torrent of sorrow leaked into him through their bond. The ceaseless exposure to his mate’s distress wore on him as a result, affecting everything he did. Ulquiorra’s impeccable posture now had a decided slump to it and he had to work at keeping from drooping when in the presence of others. At the beginning, he thought Orihime was the lone source of the overwhelming grief. However, he’d noticed that the emotions never truly subsided. They were present while Orihime slept, or while he was on patrol. His Claim upon her, while powerful, did have a limit as far as distance and the potency of the emotions he could feel from her diminished the farther away from her he flew. Therefore, not all of it belonged to her and logic told him the pain could have only one other source.

He’d never lost anything he truly cared for before. If he had lost anything of equivalent importance, he could not recall it. Ulquiorra _could_ count the number of things he truly cared for on one hand, perhaps two if he was honest with himself. His mate and his son numbered among those of course, but in time, he’d added others to this very exclusive list. The years in the Seireitei had changed many of his cohorts and some of the colleagues he had once despised had earned his respect in that time. Meanwhile, others he had once respected had slipped a notch or two in his estimation either thanks to their actions or to his newfound awareness of a more empathic code of conduct.

Aizen Sosuke was chief among those.

The bitterness he could taste in the back of his throat was as much the result of the loss of the admiration he’d once had for ‘Kami-sama’ as it was for the loss of his child. Denying it would be futile and his last, angry conversation with Diaemus would forever be a reminder of it.

The regard he’d had for Aizen had ebbed over the years but the final blow, the thing that had cracked it beyond repair, had been Kami’s cold disregard for the fate of the kidnapped children. The loss of warriors during a prolonged conflict was always an unfortunate possibility. Ulquiorra understood this and could accept that such an outcome might occur. He and his son took that risk every time they engaged the Swarm. The only way to mitigate the danger of not returning home was to be better than the insects they faced. However, the abduction was the first time the Swarm had ever shown an interest in taking prisoners. From a tactical standpoint, such a surprising action warranted further investigation, especially after ten years of repetitive attacks.

On a personal level, he found Aizen’s indifference to his son’s fate a poor ‘thank you’ in light of Ulquiorra’s past steadfastness. If there had ever been a time to reward devotion, it would have come the moment ‘Kami’ had learned of Ajuga and Diaemus’s capture.

_I was under the impression that a god watched over his worshippers._

The sullen thought festered in his brain, allowing him no peace. There was a corollary to that cynical judgment, one that bordered on a conclusion he might have once considered treasonous. He was indignant enough about how little time Aizen had allotted for a search that he allowed it to make a comfortable home for itself in his psyche.

_If a god chooses not to help a faithful follower in his time of need,_ Ulquiorra reasoned _there are only two logical deductions one could infer. Either the follower is not faithful, or the god is not a god_ _…_ _and there were none more committed to Aizen-sama than me._

Suppressing a melancholy sigh, Ulquiorra turned northward and continued to scan the horizon of his assigned patrol route. He absently noted the location of the few Shinigami with whom he shared the area. Most of them were of insignificant strength and thus unworthy of anything more than cursory attention. Their only purpose was to act as lookouts and serve as cannon fodder for the locusts. Then another, somewhat shaky signature pinged against his senses. It was weaker than the signatures belonging to the Shinigami and he almost dismissed it, save that what little reiatsu it did have had an oddly familiar flavour. Ulquiorra, to the best of his knowledge, couldn’t remember ever running into a Shinigami with that little spiritual pressure and wondered why a Taichou would assign an individual like that to a patrol route this far out.

The Espada paused.

_No. None of the Taichou would do such a thing,_ he decided.

That meant it might not be a Shinigami at all. Frowning, he scrutinized the forested skyline for the odd, fluctuating energy. It took a few moments to locate it because it was so erratic and so faint, as if it were struggling or damaged in some way. Its feebleness made Ulquiorra wonder if it could be one of the Swarm’s Generals. Szayel had that dead one in his laboratories and Hana had recounted the disastrous run-in with the one who had taken Ajuga and his son. He had yet to encounter one, but it was a possibility and his duties required he investigate.

Ulquiorra honed in on the tiny amount of power he could detect to get a more precise location and went to intercept it.

At first, he thought it was a wounded bird labouring to stay aloft, but as he got closer, he noticed that the shapes of the thing’s wings were all wrong for anything of an avian nature. In addition, it was far larger than any bird he had ever seen, at least in the Soul Society.

He’d also never seen a bird with long, wind-tangled, copper-coloured hair.

Ulquiorra’s green eyes widened in recognition just as the floundering creature finally lost its strength and fell as if shot.

He instinctively launched into Sonido. The crackling buzz his movements created drowned out the hammering of the heart he’d once denied having. Reaching out, he captured his son’s falling body in midair, just before Diaemus could collide messily, and probably lethally, with the upper branches of a stand of tall pines. The rescue wasn’t particularly graceful and, burdened with an awkward tangle of wings and limbs, he did his best to get to the ground without injuring either of them. A mixture of elation and terror coursed through him as he gaped down at the boy he thought he’d never see again.

Diaemus’s laboured breaths came too fast and too deep to be healthy and Ulquiorra realized he was beginning to hyperventilate. The black feathery fur on the lower half of his body was soaked with sweat and lather. Those left dried, saltwater streaks on his exposed skin. His chest and back muscles twitched violently against the fabric of Ulquiorra’s uniform, a sign that his child had depleted not only his reserves, but also critical electrolytes along with the sweat. What little reiatsu he had left felt strange, as if something foreign had tainted him. The explanation lay in the traces of blood staining his son’s face. Remnants of it clung to a portion of his lower jaw that his tongue couldn’t reach.

A sniff confirmed the dried blood belonged to Ajuga.

Had Ajuga sustained an injury severe enough that she’d bled on her co-captive? Alternatively, had his son consumed her in order to survive? Grimmjow would fly into a rage if either explanation turned out to be true. Ulquiorra immediately decided that it would be best to find out why his son had potentially incriminating blood on his person before letting Grimmjow know that Diaemus had managed to escape.

Adjusting his grip on his son, he abandoned his patrol and returned to the city, travelling at speeds even he wasn’t aware he could achieve without using his Resurrección. He made a beeline for the 4th Division, trying to avoid all obstacles to reach its gates, bursting through the front doors and startling everyone in the lobby. The Shinigami at the front desk gaped at him as the papers he’d been in the middle of shuffling went flying in the backwash of air created when Ulquiorra and the boy he carried came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the room. Two attendants and the few waiting patients scattered about raised their hands as it buffeted their hair and clothing.

“Get Unohana-sama,” he ordered the man coldly, marching towards the nearest waiting gurney and depositing his burden on it. For some unfathomable reason, he couldn’t bring himself to let go of his son, keeping a firm grip on one hand.

Diaemus hadn’t stirred, even though the noise of a suddenly busy room ought to have put the boy’s instincts on alert. The hand resting in Ulquiorra’s grasp remained limp and unresponsive. If it weren’t for the very faint traces of reiatsu and the rapid rise and fall of his chest, the Espada would have believed his son was dead. He felt a sharp pain in his chest and a pressure that continued to rise every second his son continued to suffer. What made it worse was the knowledge that he could do nothing about it. The shorter of the two lobby attendants, a young woman with dark hair and a nervous, rabbit-like manner, disappeared, presumably to find her Taichou. Her taller male counterpart warily approached Ulquiorra and the gurney he guarded. The Arrancar absently realized the winces on the remaining faces were due to the amount of distress he radiated and reeled in his reiatsu before Unohana arrived and kicked him from her Division for unwittingly endangering her patients with his lack of self-control.

However, Unohana-Taichou was not the one who arrived first. Apparently, the woman wasn’t at the 4th Division now. Instead, Orihime was the one who flew through the doors in a state of panic, wide-eyed and clenching her own chest with one hand. Her gray eyes went right to him, tears streaming from their corners before she spotted their son.

“Diaemus-kun!” she shrieked, and she rushed to the gurney’s side, summoning her golden shield as she did so. The small trickle of tears turned into a torrent of weeping in short order as the woman promptly forgot her mate and concentrated solely on her unconscious child.

Her piercing outburst caused everyone in the room to cover their ears and draw back from the display of maternal hysteria, including the remaining attendant. The healing Kido in his hands sputtered and died out, but Ulquiorra let the man withdraw now that his mate was here. The 4th Division healers knew when to back off and give those associated with Aizen’s inner circle room to do what was necessary. They also knew not to get in the way of the Fourth Espada’s mate and her powers. The attendant Shinigami wisely retreated and saw to the rest of those souls cringing in the lobby’s chairs instead.

Ulquiorra allowed himself to relax a bit once Orihime’s Soten Kisshun began to do its work. Diaemus’s breathing eased, even if his reiatsu remained horrifyingly low. Only then did he realize how hard he had clamped down on the Claim he held over Orihime. He’d summoned her in a blind panic, an instinctive reaction that he might have once expected out of a lesser being. He immediately loosened his grip on her. The pain in Orihime’s expression subsequently eased, though the look of fear for their son remained.

Mortification at his uncharacteristic lack of restraint washed over him. He’d broken his word and used the Claim against her when he had promised her he wouldn’t do so. Ulquiorra could feel the physical pain he’d caused her, as well as a great deal of relief as Diaemus slowly regained some color. His reiatsu, unfortunately, was almost nonexistent. His son had obviously overexerted himself, had pushed his body to the limits in order to escape and return to the city. Pride at his son’s achievement wedged its way between the disgrace he felt over his misuse of his Claim and the anxiety caused by Diaemus’s condition.

“My apologies,” he muttered to his Mate.

“It’s alright,” she said softly. “You had a good reason and it got me here faster than trying to hunt me down.” Ulquiorra had the feeling that she would have laid one hand on his arm to drive the point home if she wasn’t busy maintaining the healing shield above their son’s body. “I would probably have been upset with you if you _hadn_ _’_ _t_ summoned me.”

“That is still no excuse for me to have hurt you with it. A gentle pull would have been sufficient.”

She didn’t argue with him. Either she chose to drop the matter, or more likely, she chose to focus on healing their son. Ulquiorra had done what he’d done and he couldn’t go back and change it now. He knew from personal experience how forgiving she could be and under the circumstances, she might have written off his actions as those of a terrified father.

“Diaemus? Come on sweetie, wake up and speak to me,” she begged, sniffling and brushing strands of his hair from his face. The golden shield faded away, her fairies fluttering about her in concern as she pulled a still limp Diaemus to her chest. Ulquiorra saw that his son was still no closer to consciousness than before.

A few more of the 4th Division healers had made it to the lobby, but aside from that first attendant, none of them had dared to venture closer. They did not know him well enough to trust how he would react to an intrusion into his personal space. He would have to compliment Unohana-Taichou for her well-trained staff. Given his earlier lapse with Orihime, he was glad that the rest of Unohana’s people had the presence of mind to keep their distance.

Now that his mate had done what she could, he could see that Diaemus’s situation was no longer life threatening, at least from a physical standpoint. Unfortunately, his spiritual pressure was still of grave concern to his father.

“Let me see him,” he instructed his mate, moving once more to his son’s side.

Reluctantly, Orihime set Diaemus back down on the gurney and stepped away, her face glistening from the tears trickling down her cheeks. She’d healed Diaemus’s body and he couldn’t fault her for that. Unfortunately, the boy’s body wasn’t the problem.

His son could move at ridiculously swift speeds when he desired. Ulquiorra had once overheard Hana explaining to a disgruntled Ajuga that his ability to do so was the result of some sort of high-level technique he’d mastered. Such techniques required a great deal of reiatsu from the user. If Diaemus had used such a technique for long periods, it would explain his current condition. He had obviously flown past the point of endurance and it was a wonder he hadn’t killed himself in the process, drained of reiatsu as he was.

Fortunately, Ulquiorra _could_ do something about this. He rolled up his jacket’s sleeve.

Without hesitation, he drew Murcielago and slid his wrist along the edge of the blade, much to the shocked gasps of those around him, including his mate. He sheathed the weapon just as quickly as he’d drawn it and swiftly moved the fingers of his right hand to Diaemus’ mouth. Then he forced his son’s lips apart, placed his bleeding wrist over his child’s tongue and let the blood flow freely.

At first, nothing happened and Ulquiorra, feeling some frustration, pressed his wrist deeper into Diaemus’s open jaw. That proved to be the trigger.

Diaemus surged forward, going from laying limply on the gurney to feeding ravenously in less than a second. Two hands reached up and latched desperately onto Ulquiorra’s forearm. At the same time, he could feel Diaemus’s teeth sink into the flesh around the open wound and his son began drinking greedily from both the wound he’d made and the new ones created by the bite. Ulquiorra almost swooned as his reiatsu poured from the wound and he felt a brief rush of vertigo. He had fed his son this way before, when Diaemus was still a young child. He’d only required a tiny trickle of blood to obtain the energy he’d needed back in those days.

Now Diaemus was doing his best to drink him dry. It was a sign as to how little reiatsu his son had left and any doubts he might have had about his progeny’s potential strength vanished. He tried to pry Diaemus’ mouth from his wrist before his son could consume any more of his energy and possibly put him at a disadvantage. The mouth that had latched onto his arm like a lamprey proved surprisingly difficult to dislodge. Diaemus’s embedded fangs tore at the skin around them when Ulquiorra tried to get him to disengage. Instead, the hands on his forearm tightened. Diaemus kept guzzling blood and reiatsu from him, completely oblivious to the fact he was not only mindlessly feeding from his sire but that he had begun to take too much.

_How long did he fly before he reached home?_ Ulquiorra wondered, before attempting to free his arm again, to no avail. He doubted his boy was capable of anything more than assuaging his hunger. He was beyond reason and the Espada knew if he didn’t find a way to stop his son’s feeding frenzy soon, Diaemus would consume him. The graying around the edges of his vision told him that he was already in serious trouble.

Orihime cried out both of their names and move to help, but a sharp look from him kept her at arm’s length. He did not want their son to turn on her in his crazed state. Then he felt a presence quickly move in behind him and with a tap of a finger to Diaemus’s copper-haired head, the boy’s fangs finally let go. His son fell back onto the bed, his chin, throat, chest and mouth drenched in his father’s blood. He was still unconscious, but he’d lost the unhealthy pallor as his body used his father‘s blood and power to repair itself.

“Teenage boys are well known for their voracious appetites,” Unohana stated calmly. Then she took his profusely bleeding wrist in hand to examine the damage. The petite woman didn’t seem to care about whether or not he bled on her, but he supposed that she would be used to that kind of thing in her line of work.

“Hmm. I’ve seen much worse.”

Blood still flowed from his mangled arm, both sets of wounds held open by the anti-coagulant his son’s fangs had injected into his flesh the moment he began to feed. Thankfully, everything from his elbow down to his fingertips was numb, a secondary side effect of Diaemus’s saliva. Otherwise, he’d be in agony as well as light-headed from the blood loss. Unohana took a hard look at the damage, turning his wrist this way and that while pressing against the wound with her fingertips. Reluctantly, she turned to look at his mate.

“I believe that your powers will address this far more efficiently than Kido. Would you be so kind as to tend to your mate while I see to your son, Orihime-san?” Unohana asked politely.

“Of course!”

Two of her fairies fluttered from where they rested on her left shoulder to tend to his mangled wrist. The familiar, soothing energy surrounded him and he gave in to it gladly. In minutes, the flesh was once again smooth and pale and the numbness gone.

Meanwhile, Unohana examined their boy with her usual efficiency, her expression serene as she rolled him so that he lay on his right side, his back to her. Ulquiorra noticed her eyes roving up and down both wings, looking for hidden injuries. By the time Orihime finished with his wrist, the Taichou had pushed up and latched the gurney's rails in place. She cleared her throat, getting their attention before moving around the other side of the gurney and taking a position on one of the ends. A significant look sent to the attendant who first approached brought him about to the foot of the gurney, mostly to provide aid in steering the thing, as well as making sure that Diaemus’s wings didn’t catch on anything in the corridors.

Still a little disoriented from the loss of so much reiatsu, Ulquiorra accepted Orihime’s stealthy offer of assistance when she ducked under his right arm and he tightened it about her shoulders. While he truly didn’t care what anyone else might think of him at present, her gesture would keep him on his feet long enough to find a convenient chair and save him from a pride killing encounter with the floor. Unohana personally pushed their son down a series of mazelike hallways. They quickly followed behind the Taichou. Orihime seemed to know where they were going and for that, Ulquiorra was grateful. After the first three turns, he admitted to himself he was lost. They finally came to a door that looked no different from the thirty others they’d passed in the long, confusing maze of corridors. The attendant at the foot of Diaemus’s gurney quickly opened it, letting Unohana push the gurney inside. Ulquiorra ducked his head inside to see a somewhat bland-looking room with two chairs, a hospital bed and a long, low set of cabinets on the far wall.

Ulquiorra had to give the Shinigami Taichou some credit. For all of her petite size, she did an admirable job of moving his son’s unresponsive body to the bed and making sure his wings were clear of the bedding. The lobby attendant waited to see if his superior had any further use for him and when no additional instructions came his way, bowed and exited the room, taking the gurney with him.

“Physically, he is fine, aside from the exhaustion and dehydration. The reiatsu deprivation seems to be the greatest problem. Orihime-san, did you see any signs of physical trauma before you began healing him?” Unohana asked of his mate.

“It looked as if someone had damaged his wings and then healed that damage, before I used my powers,” Orihime replied carefully. “All of his muscles were strained and he wasn’t moving much, other than breathing.”

The healer’s gaze slid to Ulquiorra next and for some reason, he had the urge to straighten up and answer quickly.

“I found him on the northern edges of my patrol’s boundaries and managed to catch him before he could…”

The way his mate tensed in his arms made him pause and he swallowed what he was going to say. “He was hyperventilating and suffering from heavy muscle spasms, which are why he might have fallen,” Ulquiorra said instead.

Unohana nodded her head and finally pulled the drapes aside to let the morning light shine into the room. As she turned back to face them, Ulquiorra thought he caught a glimpse of profound relief on her features, before she covered it with her usual professional demeanour. Evidently, she’d been worried about Ajuga and Diaemus too. He found that surprisingly endearing.

“He should recover quickly then. However, to be on the safe side, I am still going to put an IV in his arm and give him some fluids. He’s certainly dehydrated and it looks as if he hasn’t eaten in some time. I also want to get some nutrients into him… preferably some actual food.”

Ulquiorra’s hand twitched a little as she gave him a look that told him she knew exactly what he’d tried to accomplish in the lobby and one of her eyebrows rose. Her next words were crisp and delivered in a way that said she would hear no arguments.

“I’ll put in an order for a meal for him once he awakens, which might happen in an hour or so if we’re lucky. He will probably be extremely hungry. Make sure he doesn’t eat too much too quickly or the food might make him sick. I’m also going to send a message to Grantz-san to come by and look at him, just to make sure he has no foreign bodies or tracking devices in him.”

“Alright,” Orihime easily agreed, taking the chair next to their son and pulling a hand into her own.

“I am required to report in as I abandoned my patrol,” he told his mate softly, truly not wanting to leave their side. Duty called however, especially now that his son was stable and safe. While he doubted that Aizen would harm him for seeing Diaemus to the 4th Division rather than completing his patrol, he decided it would be best if he at least checked in and prevented the deployment of an unneeded search party.

Turning to go, he found Unohana blocking his way. Both her stance and that implacable look on her face told him he wasn’t going anywhere. He would have shouldered any other impediment out of his way, but Kami’s wife was a different matter entirely.

“I would like you to take these with you and consume at least three of these before you leave this room.” 

She held out her hands and deposited four small, somewhat squishy-feeling silver packets in his hand. He had no idea what they were. She must have seen his confusion as he stared down at them.

“The members of my Division often work very long hours, under less-than ideal conditions. My predecessor and one of his colleagues developed these for the purpose of quick reiatsu replenishment. It’s a gel, infused with enough reiatsu to keep an average member of the 4th Division supplied with the necessary energy to get his or her work done for an hour,” she explained, her voice betraying a small amount of wistfulness at the mention of the one she’d succeeded. “They’re a temporary solution to help avoid reiatsu depletion, until the healer in question can obtain a decent meal and a proper night’s sleep. However, I find that in these times, having a steady supply on hand helps in other ways. Please tear off the side indicated on the packaging and squeeze the contents into your mouth.”

They looked entirely unappetizing, but she was correct in that Diaemus wasn’t the only one suffering from a lack of reiatsu. He did as she told him and took as much of the cloyingly sweet stuff onto his tongue as he could manage without gagging. While the taste was less than pleasant, he had to acknowledge their usefulness when the dizzy feeling that hounded him disappeared after swallowing the second packet. By the time that he finished off the fourth, his body felt much better and he was no longer swaying on his feet. His mouth, on the other hand, wanted to find the nearest glass of water to wash the sickly-sweet stuff coating his teeth and his palate out of his mouth. He did his best not to give into the urge to gag.

Unohana’s expression was sympathetic.

“I apologize for the taste. They’re a treatment, not a snack,” she said and took the empty packets from him, tossing them into the wastebasket at the end of the cabinets. Orihime looked at him while he did his best to summon up some saliva to mitigate the gel’s horrid taste.

“You will be right back?”

The worry in her voice brought his attention back to his family.

“As quickly as I can,” he replied.

“Okay,” she murmured, looking back down at their son.

He departed the 4th Division after finding a washroom and repeatedly rinsing out his mouth in lieu of brushing his teeth. Then he made for the 1st Division, his mind racing as he tried to envision all of the possible scenarios that might have led to his son’s escape. Hana had reported that the General had broken Diaemus’s wings in several places and yet both appeared whole and sound. Healing them on his own would have taken so much energy that the boy wouldn’t have had the strength to fly to the point of exhaustion within their patrol range. He could say many things about Szayel Apporo Grantz, but the scientist hadn’t been lying when he said the children were out of range of his sensors. The strain of prolonged flight on Diaemus’s body and the condition in which Ulquiorra found him confirmed that. Therefore, he’d received healing from an outside source rather than regenerating on his own.

There were the traces of Ajuga’s blood on his son’s face to consider as well and he didn’t like what those implied. Until his son woke up and could report, they would have no idea what had happened to the two after Hana had lost sight of them. He didn’t see any overt signs of torture or experimentation on his son, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t happened. Szayel could take a person apart and put them back together again without any discernible evidence of tampering. There was no real reason to think the Swarm might not be able to do so as well.

“Oi, who lit your tail on fire?” Grimmjow called out to him, the Sixth’s obnoxiously loud voice sounding as if he was right at Ulquiorra’s elbow.

His son’s return must have affected him more than he realized, for he had nearly run headlong into the other Espada as he marched through the main entranceway of the 1st Division. Blinking, he abandoned thinking about his son and refocused on the world around him.

His initial assessment of Grimmjow’s location was only off by a foot. The blue-haired Arrancar scowled at him from a spot close enough to him that Ulquiorra considered it a violation of his personal space. It appeared that his fellow Espada was about ready to depart for his own round of patrols, and that he was in a foul mood as well. The Sixth had been extremely touchy and somewhat ‘in-your-face’ with others since the loss of his daughter.

For a moment Ulquiorra remained silent, trying to determine whether or not sharing the news that his son had escaped while Ajuga remained a captive was a good idea. Was it prudent, he wondered, to bring up the blood? Would finding out now cause more damage than letting Grimmjow find out about Diaemus’s return later? Stronger Hollows often ate the weaker ones around them when their survival was at stake. In addition, he had no proof that the blood was from anything more than an injury Ajuga may have sustained. That would have to wait until Diaemus woke up.

Weighing his options, he decided to be truthful. His mate spent a great deal of time at the 4th Division. There was a chance that Orihime would come across at least one of her many friends there shortly. She might have even informed them already. ‘Shit would really hit the fan,’ an expression that Grimmjow favoured, if the Sixth learned Ulquiorra had hidden this from him. He had no desire to fend off a furious fellow Espada and he didn’t trust Unohana’s nasty-tasting gel packets to give him enough energy to do so.

_Honesty it is then_ _…_ he thought and opened his mouth.

“I found Diaemus this morning, while patrolling to the north. I am on my way to report the incident to Kami-sama. Unohana-sama and his mother are tending to him now. He’s unconscious, unfortunately.”

He had never seen hope blossom on an Arrancar’s face before, least of all an Espada’s, but there it was, glimmering in Grimmjow’s blue eyes. His posture changed as well, going from a dejected slouch to standing ramrod straight and squaring his shoulders. He could almost see the millions of questions racing through Grimmjow’s mind, and braced himself for a violent outburst at the very least.

It never happened. With visible effort, Grimmjow kept his body still and his hands to himself. A mere decade ago, Grimmjow would have buried his claws in the fabric of the Fourth’s jacket while he swore and demanded answers. Taking a deep breath, Grimmjow let it out slowly before speaking. The display of composure bolstered the Fourth’s opinion that he’d done the right thing.

“I am coming with you,” Grimmjow declared, looking Ulquiorra dead in the eye in much the same way that Unohana had done not twenty minutes earlier. He found it uncanny and somewhat disturbing. Perhaps he’d been taking lessons from the petite healer.

It wasn’t an unreasonable, nor unexpected request, so Ulquiorra nodded, granting him permission to tag along. In truth, he couldn’t have stopped the other even if he’d wanted to, so he resigned himself to some short-term companionship. Grimmjow fell in next to him and they walked towards Aizen’s office side by side, a united front of parental concern.


	49. Location

Karin hated paperwork with a passion. However, she didn’t mind this form too much. She found it amusing that the inter-division soccer tournament she started all those years ago was still going strong. She was also grateful for the distraction. These mundane events helped keep her sane, even as worry ate away at her. The organization of the tournament was hard and she had to work at staying focused. At least she knew Ajuga was alive and she hoped that her daughter’s captors would take care of her. For the first time ever, she thought she understood how Ichigo must have felt.

She and Yuzu had been the prisoners of the man who had tried, repeatedly, to kill her brother. While the analogy wasn’t perfect, it was close enough to make her feel uncomfortable and even a little guilty. She’d endured less than two weeks of this and she _knew_ her daughter was alive, if injured. Ichigo had had to deal with the uncertainty about his sister’s fates, and their welfare for much longer.

_Makes me look like a damned hypocrite,_ she grumbled to herself. The first thing she was going to do when she saw Yoruichi again was to make sure the feline passed an apology from her to her brother.

She decided that the schedules looked good. Barring another Swarm attack, they’d hold the tournaments as scheduled. The only thing left to do was distribute them to the various Divisions. Normally, she would hand that task off to one of her seated officers, but she really didn’t feel like sitting in the office today. She was growing increasingly antsy as each day passed and Yoruichi failed to appear. Part of that she attributed to worry for her daughter but time wasn’t on her side in this matter when it came to their plans for Aizen. She really did not want to wait until late summer to try to garner help from the Escapees. While she was sure Ajuga and Diaemus were safe, every day her daughter was away filled her heart with more and more dread. Worse, Grimmjow was so out of it that they hadn’t had sex once since the Swarm took her daughter. His resulting lack of libido told her that his mind was truly elsewhere and that he was just as worried as she was. Karin didn’t think her mate had _ever_ gone this long without attempting to drag her into bed.

“I am going to drop off these forms,” she informed Nanao with a sigh and stood up. Her Taichou blinked up at her from behind at least six stacks of receipts and what Karin suspected were the latest budget reports.

“Alright. When you get back we should go over the budget reports for field equipment.”

Karin scowled, her fears confirmed. She absolutely loathed budget reports, but at least she now understood them thanks to the classes she’d taken at the Academy during the five years that the Defence Net had kept the Swarm at bay. Who knew the majority of a Shinigami’s existence involved this much accounting? Karin certainly hadn’t before she’d enrolled.

“Then I’ll bring back two bottles of sake as well,” she groaned.

Nanao offered her a little chuckle and waved her off. Gathering her papers, and the ones from the ‘out’ boxes that others would normally deliver, she left the office. Karin decided that her first stop ought to be the 4th Division, as it was the closest.

The day promised to be beautiful. The sun shone brightly and from its position, it was roughly ten in the morning. Karin lamented the absence of ‘real’ clocks in this dimension. There weren’t many of them and most of those were in the 4th Division or the Science and Research building. She reminded herself to ask Abisara to make her a watch when the boy wasn’t busy finishing the reiatsu sensors, but for now she just pulled down her shades, confirming it was 9:54. Leave it to Szayel, she thought, to design a pair of sunglasses with more features than a bloody computer.

She had just arrived at the gates of the 4th Division when she spotted Hana. The girl carried a large stack of papers in her arms, peering over the top of them to see where she was going. Karin guessed that Toshiro had sent her out to deliver the 3rd Division’s set of reports. Judging by the height of the stack, she had also decided to stop by the 4th Division first. For some reason, Nanao’s daughter seemed to be in a hurry, breathlessly coming to a stop before she realized Karin was there. They greeted each other warmly and walked into the 4th Division together.

A bizarre scene greeted them on the other side of the doors. One corner of Hana’s mouth turned up as she surveyed the lobby and those in it, which led Karin to believe that the young woman had been expecting to see this and had chosen the 4th Division as her first stop for this very reason.

A Shinigami she recognized as Unohana’s Fukutaichou sat in flustered silence behind the lobby’s main desk with a brush poised in one hand over an open notebook. On the other side of the counter stood all three of Harribel’s fraccion, two of whom looked extremely cranky. The third hid her expression behind one of her sleeves in a demure gesture. From the way her eyes sparkled with barely-disguised humour, she apparently found something funny about the exchange currently taking place. Karin failed to see what that was, from the tension in the lobby. When Hana said nothing to the three Arrancar, but chose instead to tiptoe to a secluded spot to watch the drama unfold, Karin could only follow suit. Hana favoured Karin with a sidelong look. Karin had no idea what was going on, but followed Hana out of curiosity.

“What’s so hard to comprehend, dipshit? We’re sorry and we’re here to help, so let us help already!” Apache snapped. She placed both hands on the desk and leaned forward, getting up in the man’s face as much as the counter would allow. Karin thought she saw Iemura-san, or Imara-san… for the life of her she couldn’t remember his family name… retreat as far as the backrest of his chair would allow.

“Can it, Apache. You’re scaring the poor guy,” Mila Rose grunted, her arms crossed over her chest.

“He should be scared,” Apache sniffed, finally backing away from the blonde officer’s pale face and tossing her head. The third Arrancar, silent up until now, rolled her eyes at the display.

“Don’t mind her. She’s just upset that we have to be here at all.”

Sung Sun’s apology for her sister’s behaviour sounded more like a pointed barb aimed at Mila Rose.

“We’re sorry for nearly creaming your subordinate when he came to do the blood tests on us,” Mila Rose grumbled, her scowl nearly identical to Apache’s frown. “Harribel-sama told us that we have to help out for a few days to make up for it.”

Karin’s eyebrows shot up at the explanation. When she turned her head to look at Hana, she discovered the 3rd Division’s Seventh Seat biting her lower lip in an effort to keep from laughing aloud and dropping her stack of forms.

“Ah, I see,” their victim said more confidently, adjusting his glasses as he did so. “I will convey your contrition to 8th Seat Harunobu-san as well as Unohana-Taichou when next I see her.”

Karin had seen Szayel do the same thing sometimes, when he wasn’t using the gesture in a feeble effort to look good. Maybe playing with one’s spectacles was a ‘man with glasses thing.’ She had never seen anyone with sunglasses do it before though, and she certainly didn’t fiddle with the pair she wore to dampen her ‘sight’ around those with an inordinate amount of spiritual pressure, such as Aizen and Starrk. Nanao wore corrective lenses of course, but when her Taichou touched the frames of _her_ glasses, it usually preceded another helping of paperwork. Entire squads of Shinigami tensed in anticipation of orders when they saw her reach towards her face, as it meant Ise-Taichou was about to get serious. Of course, Karin’s pair spent more time on her forehead than on her face, unlike Nanao. She just wished there was a way to turn her sight off, or at least moderate it without having to rely on eyewear.

“Do you have any medical skills or experience?” Iemura-Fukutaichou asked in a much more professional tone. The two louder women’s faces flushed with embarrassment at the question. They each muttered ‘no’ while Sung Sun gently shook her head.

“Hmm. That will limit your options.”

Karin swore there was a glint in the man’s eyes as he informed them that the only chores that they could help with involved cleaning or supply sorting. Their faces turned red at that and Karin waited for the next round of fireworks.

“What, you think a woman’s only good for cleaning?” Apache demanded sharply. Mila Rose bared her teeth and turned her head away, crossing her arms over her chest and uttering an affronted ‘hmph’ sound. Sung Sun’s shoulders slumped a little and disappointment took the place of the glee in her lavender eyes.

Surprisingly, the man actually sighed at the accusation. Putting down his brush, he reached up and pulled his glasses off, folding them neatly and setting them to the side. Then he clasped his hands, fingers laced together and looked the three women in the eye.

“Ladies, the fact that you are women has nothing to do with it. I would assign you tasks more fitting to women of your rank and power if I could, but you do not have the proper training to assist with patients. This is a medical policy, not a judgment of your strength.”  
  


He sounded very matter-of-fact about the situation and Karin had to give him kudos for not cowering. The Trés Bestias had their violent reputations for a reason. She heard Hana snort, the sound barely audible as Iemura went on.

“That being said, we have a great many things to do on a daily basis, as our Division is also responsible for resupplying those Shinigami out in the field. What I can do is give you a list of the chores that need completing today and on the days that the three of you are here. You may pick the ones you wish to complete. Doing so will free up someone with healing skills to see to the wounded.”

Leaning forward, the man reached up and rubbed his forehead. When he looked back at the three women, Karin detected some relief in both his voice and his earnest expression.

“Frankly, ladies, the Swarm’s latest round of invasion attempts have sorely taxed our healers. Any help the three of you can provide in a support capacity will be greatly appreciated, I assure you.”

His no-nonsense delivery and the expression of gratitude seemed to mollify Apache and Mila Rose. Karin silently applauded his tact as he retrieved his sunglasses and plopped them back over the bridge of his nose. Then he started writing out a list of jobs, carefully explaining what the tasks involved, where they needed to go and who could further direct them. He paid special attention to the tasks he felt might suit each woman. By the time Iemura-Fukutaichou finished, nerves had been soothed and tempers assuaged. Karin silently applauded him. The man knew what he was doing when it came to delegating and placating egos.

Karin was surprised this man _wasn_ _’_ _t_ Claimed, considering the strength of the reiatsu that she saw when she looked at him through her lenses. It simmered, much like a pot deliberately turned down to a low heat to keep it from boiling over. When she stopped and pondered the potential reasons why the Arrancar had let someone of his rank alone, she realized that none of the 4th Division healers had ‘Masters’ or ‘Mistresses’. That startled her, but when she thought about it further, the fact he was free made more sense.

Power and fighting skill seemed to be a key quality the Arrancar looked for in a pet. The lack of Claims could be because the 4th Division’s membership had the lowest combat strength of the remaining forces. Self-preservation might also be a factor. Karin doubted that any of the Arrancar wanted to anger Kami’s wife. The woman had a blinding amount of carefully banked power at her disposal. Karin was willing to bet hard money that the only Arrancar strong enough to Claim Unohana was Starrk and she doubted the lazy Primera would want to fight such an opponent in the first place.

Her imagination conjured up an image of Unohana-Taichou, Jushiro and Coyote Starrk gathered around the low table in Jushiro’s room, complete with cups of hot tea and a half-finished game of shoji. Karin promptly took a mental hammer and shattered it in an attempt to drive it from her head.

Papers in hand, the three fraccion walked off in the direction he’d indicated, muttering as they looked at the lists of available tasks, though Sung Sun paused to cast a brief, speculative look over her shoulder at the man behind the desk. Once they were out of earshot Hana finally let a snicker escape and grinned widely at the entertainment that her fellow fraccion had unwittingly provided. Karin also noticed that the blonde man keenly watched the three Arrancar retreat down the hall before he shook his head and turned his attention towards them.

“Ah, Hana-chan! Are you here to see your friend?” he asked as Hana approached the counter. The teenager gave him a blank look in return.

“Friend?”

Iemura-Fukutaichou nodded and held up what appeared to be a patient check-in roster.

“I believe his name is Diaemus. Ulquiorra-sama brought him in about an hour ago. While she officially signed him in about half-an-hour ago, I am not sure if Unohana-Taichou has….”

Karin didn’t catch the rest of the conversation. The moment he’d uttered Diaemus’s name she’s frantically scanned the Division for his reiatsu. She spotted Orihime’s instead, the woman’s power far brighter than that of her son. Dumping the paperwork in her arms on the desk, she took off running, Hana hard on her heels. It took a few minutes of dashing down more than one twisting corridor before she found the right door. Orihime looked up at them in surprise when they burst into the room. The woman held a damp, pink-stained cloth a few inches over the boy’s face, as if she’d been wiping it. Diaemus lay on the bed with an IV in his arm, unconscious and far too pale for Karin’s liking. A bowl of bloodied wash water sat on the top of a metal tray in Orihime’s lap.

Karin moved quickly to Orihime’s side and the two women shared an embrace, both of them barely holding back tears. Judging by her puffy red eyes, Orihime had already done her share of crying this morning.

“He hasn’t woken up yet.” Orihime told her before she could start with the inquiries.

Instead, Karin asked, “Where is Ulquiorra?”

“He went to report in and he should be back soon. Right now, we don’t know anything, but Unohana-san said he should wake up soon.” Biting her lip and sniffing, she added, “He’s suffering from exhaustion. Ulquiorra thinks, from how he fell, that he’s been flying for days! He’s covered in dried sweat and Ulquiorra had to …”

“He’ll be okay,” Karin assured her and hugged her before Orihime could get worked up again. Hana dropped her reports on the top of the cabinet. Then she bent over Diaemus and carefully placed a hand on his forehead.

“The blood?” Hana inquired, staring at the swath of drying, red-brown fluid on Diaemus’s chest and face that Orihime hadn’t cleaned away yet. Karin and Hana both froze when Orihime elaborated on Ulquiorra’s ‘solution’ to their son’s lack of reiatsu. The teenager immediately backed up and crossed her arms over her chest, reaching up to rub her forehead. Karin swore the girl actually glared down at her childhood friend with a mixture of incredulity and anger.

“He couldn’t have ridden the slip stream non-stop… not for days” the older woman thought she heard Hana murmur. At that moment, Hana looked very much like her mother.

Karin wondered if the Swarm might have tossed him out, since he lacked any Royal Blood. They would know nothing until Diaemus awoke. Hana changed the red tinted water as Orihime continued to wipe her son’s torso clean. While his skin was easy to clean, his feathery fur would require at least a soaking and possibly more than one shower to rid it of the dried blood, dirt, and layers of caked-on sweat.

They sat in silence for several minutes, each of them lost in their own thoughts with the only sound that of drops of water falling back into the bowl and wet cloth on skin as Orihime worked. When she dropped the cloth back into the bowl, swishing it back and forth to clean it, they almost missed the faint sound of a ragged breath escaping a pair of wind-burned lips.

“Mother?” a voice whispered, causing all of them to jump in shock. Then they jumped again when the door opened, letting in Ulquiorra, Grimmjow, and Aizen.

“Diaemus, how are you feeling?” Orihime demanded, hastily placing the tray and bowl on the floor and, pulling her son into a hug that had him struggling weakly to escape, since he was in the presence of both his father and their ruler.

“Tired,” he confessed and then said “Awful.”

Everyone but the young man on the bed shuffled about in the suddenly crowded room. Karin ended up on Grimmjow’s lap in one of the chairs, Hana leaned against the cabinet, Aizen stood by the door, Ulquiorra took a spot behind Orihime’s chair and Orihime remained seated next to her son. Karin was glad that someone had thought to open the window, as the small room would have overheated quickly. While she wasn’t pleased to find herself in close quarters with Aizen, she told herself she should have expected a visit from the bastard once Ulquiorra went to check back in at the 1st Division.

_You seem concerned enough about the boy now, you snake,_ she thought, trying to keep the hate she felt for him off her face. Keeping her temper under control took more effort, especially when Aizen looked down at the boy on the bed and gave him a curtly worded order.

“Report.”

Giving Aizen his attention, Diaemus began to relate the story, starting with the three of them stumbling onto the patrol and their original plan to capture the General for interrogation. Aizen nodded as Diaemus’ story matched Hana’s with regard to the events. He went on, describing what little he could of the cell, the freezing temperatures, and the lack of food.

The longer Diaemus spoke about the conditions, the angrier Karin became. Evidently, Mushi’s definition of ‘fine’ and her own differed greatly. The next time she saw ‘Zee’ there would be hell to pay.

“We could find no means to escape the room, not injured as we were. Then Ajuga suggested a tactic that she thought might let at least one of us escape.” Diaemus paused and swallowed nervously, glancing their way briefly before returning his attention to Aizen and continuing his report. “She believed that my superior speed and regeneration would give me the best chance to break out and make it back here. I could then return with help. Unfortunately, since they were unknowingly starving us and my wings were unusable, the only way to get the power I would need involved feeding on Ajuga.”

Karin felt her mate go stiff behind her and she had to grasp the arms wrapped around her to hold him still, to allow Diaemus the time needed to finish what he had to say. If her mate killed him, there would be no way to find out their daughter’s location and she wanted to avoid a fight between her Mate and Ulquiorra at all costs.

Diaemus’ voice, usually as confident and calm as his father, trembled as he continued.

“Ajuga bared her throat and ordered me to feed from her. In fact, she demanded that I do it. She pointed out that getting the location of the Swarm’s base back home was more important than one life. If we did nothing, we would both starve to death, or become so hungry that we would turn on each other anyway. It was best to make a rational decision while we could before we became too drained or delirious to do anything.”

He leaned into his mother’s grasp as he forced himself to say the next words.

“So.... I did it. I sank my fangs into her throat and fed off her. I… I’m sorry. My memories are somewhat blurry about that. When my strength returned, I was able to blast my way out of the cell using a Cero and escape before the Swarm responded.”

Diaemus broke eye contact with Aizen and stared down at his hands, which had gripped and twisted the blanket covering his legs.

“I was lucky. I got out sometime during the night and I was able to use the stars to figure out which way I needed to go. I flew as fast as I could, not stopping, not resting, using whatever air currents I could to make it home faster.

“I don’t even know if she is still alive,” he finished, his voice and his body quaking. Diaemus sounded miserable and he’d given up any pretence of trying to save face in front of the other Arrancar near his bedside, or their overlord.

Grimmjow clutched her tightly, but Karin hardly noticed. All she could see was a vision of Ajuga laying on a frost covered stone floor, blood pooling out around her and her neck savaged.

_They wouldn_ _’_ _t let her die. They need her. This was the best thing they could have done, and now we can rescue her,_ Karin thought repeatedly, trying to bring her own sudden rush of emotions under control. It was difficult to do with the potent mix of anger and despair she could feel from Grimmjow through her Claim. She tried to get a hold of herself, knowing that things could spiral out of control for the both of them if she didn’t do something to rein in her negativity. She didn’t need Grimmjow giving in to his instincts and tearing Diaemus apart for leaving their daughter behind.

Karin took a long, deep breath and kept doing that until she could think rationally about the situation. As much as she hated to admit it, Diaemus had done the right thing, probably the best thing under the circumstances.

“How many days have passed since you escaped from the Swarm’s base?”

Aizen’s coolly spoken question, aimed at the young man, cut through her attempt at self-discipline.

“I don’t know. How long have I been unconscious?” Diaemus asked.

“Only a few hours,” Orihime answered.

“Then…four days ago,” he answered. “Today would have been day five…”

The sound of rustling paper surprised the listeners. Hana had turned away and had begun flipping over the reports she’d brought with her to the room, their blank backsides visible. Then she searched through the cabinet’s drawers before letting out a cry of triumph. Karin saw she’d found a pen and a clipboard, probably left behind by a staff member.

“Starting percentage of power?” Hana suddenly demanded, taking one of the undelivered reports and putting the pen to paper. She unknowingly interrupted Aizen before he could ask another question.

“Seventy two,” Diaemus said, as if used to this kind of thing from her.

“First direction, wind resistance and time?”

“South west, 10%, two hours fifteen minutes,” he replied, under control once more as both teenagers fell into a familiar pattern of behaviour.

She peppered him with questions, Diaemus did his best to give her information and Hana’s arithmetic slowly filled the backs of the reports, removing one report when she’d filled the pages and transferring the results to the next set. Whatever displeasure Aizen might have felt over Hana’s intrusion into his interrogation turned into intrigue as numbers and letters appeared on any blank piece of paper Hana could find. The young woman muttered under her breath, working through a series of calculations. After she went back over each of the figures, looking for any errors she might have made, she lifted her head and demanded a map.

Since he was closest to the door, Aizen slid it open, ordering a passing 4th Division subordinate to fetch the largest map of Soul Society available. Then she began rooting through the cabinet drawers again, looking for something. Not ten minutes later, the map arrived, borne in by a very nervous-looking Szayel. They map was large and since there was nowhere else to spread it, it ended up draped over the bed, covering half of Diaemus as they did so.

“Ah-ha!”

Hana fished a measuring tape from one of the lower cabinet drawers, a triumphant grin on her face. She whirled around, stalked to the bedside and read the map’s scale legend. Unrolling the tightly wound tape, she found a number and set it against the map. When she had the tape arranged to her liking, the girl tapped one fingertip at the large lake near the border of the map.

“Here! This is where their base is!”

“Are you sure?” Grimmjow demanded with a growl, eyeing the spot at which she pointed.

“Of course I am sure. My math is never wrong, right Szay?”

She handed the pile of papers over to the frazzled scientist. Glancing through the pages of letters, numbers, and lines, Szayel quickly went over the map, murmuring as he did so. His body finally began to relax, despite Aizen’s presence, as the mental exercise distracted him. After several minutes, he confirmed the location of the Swarm’s base, or at least, that Hana’s computations had, based on Diaemus’s input, narrowed down the search area considerably.

“I’d say there is a .012 percent margin of error as to the _exact_ location. However, if we take that point and apply a radius of perhaps ten kilometers in each direction, I believe that young Hana is correct. The location of the Swarm’s outpost must be within that perimeter.”

“Good, let’s go,” Grimmjow demanded, rising to his feet and forcing Karin off his lap. When she elbowed him, he added a reluctant “Good job kids,” as he marched towards the door, only to pull up short as Aizen remained firmly in front of it.

“Get out of my way,” he warned, eyeing Aizen as if his ruler were no more of an obstacle than the door itself.

“Calm down, Grimmjow,” Aizen ordered sternly. “I will not have you rush off and ruin any chance we might have to surprise the enemy.”

“You mean we are really going to go after Ajuga?” Orihime asked with a surprised look on her face.

Karin felt a surge of hope herself. She had never expected that Aizen would authorize a rescue operation. It was an almost prohibitively long way to travel on foot, even for an Espada. No wonder the Swarm used Portals to get the majority of their army closer to the city. Szayel’s research indicated that most of the Swarm would have suffocated in the thinner, oxygen air if they had to travel that far. If they’d located their base any closer, Aizen would have found and destroyed it by now.

“Taking out this base will give us a large tactical advantage. I will call a meeting and we shall discuss the best way to rid the Seireitei of the threat these insects present.”

So his focus wasn’t on a rescue, but a much larger attack, she thought with some anger. Karin ground her teeth together. Of course, he wouldn’t care whether Ajuga was still alive, or still in the Swarm’s hands. All he cared about was destroying the Swarm’s stronghold. She should have expected this response from him, from a pragmatic point of view, but hearing him dismiss the possibility that her child had survived made her want to reach out and strangle him.

“Do what you want. I am getting my daughter back,” Grimmjow snarled, making for the door again…

Grimmjow’s response didn’t surprised Ulquiorra, and yet he felt no resentment towards the Sixth for acting so childishly. His earlier musings on those he respected versus those he no longer felt deserved his regard came back to him. Had this occurred four years ago, he would have scoffed at the fool. Now, that troublesome, seditious voice in his head wanted to cheer the other onward. If Ajuga had been the one to escape instead of Diaemus, nothing would stop him from going after his son. The difference was that he would plan and work with whatever resources he could get. Grimmjow was more of a “see it and do it” sort of creature, even if the “do it” portion seemed likely to get him into deep trouble with his superiors.

He supposed it was time, yet again, to step in before anything ugly could happen in the overcrowded hospital room.

“Grimmjow,” Ulquiorra stated before the stubborn idiot got himself into trouble. “Rushing out without foresight is the path to ruin. Ill-thought-out actions will not save Ajuga.”

For a moment Grimmjow looked like he was about to argue, but the irate Arrancar paused and looked at his mate, a shadow falling over his face. Ulquiorra hadn’t meant to hit a nerve, but something had definitely happened that involved failed planning. It had also included Karin judging from the scowl on her face.

Whatever had happened had nothing to do with him. Instead, he turned his cool green eyes towards Aizen.

“Kami-sama, do we have permission to scout ahead and mark the trail? Diaemus flew the entire distance, but if you intend to bring a large force to bear against the Swarm, those warriors will have to travel on foot. There may be obstacles in the way, such as geographic features that may prove to be impediments, or Swarm patrols whose routes need to be marked. As you are well aware, the Sexta will run off ahead of any troop formation that includes him. We might as well put his impulses to be the first into any fray to good use,” Ulquiorra pointed out bluntly.

“Indeed,” Aizen agreed, eyeing Grimmjow, who let out a ‘che’ noise and glared at the wall. “Very well. Sending a scouting party is a reasonable course of action.”

“I’m going too,” Karin proclaimed.

“As am I,” Orihime spoke up.

“Me too,” Hana added.

“You are not coming…” Karin began, ready to tell the girl that doing so was ludicrous considering how recently she’d recovered from her own injuries. Maybe her sister fraccion had rubbed off on Hana in the short time she’d been a part-time member of Harribel’s pack, because she held up one hand to stop the human woman.

“I can keep us on track with the map and make calculated adjustments to the possible position of the base as we go. Diaemus may be able to guide everyone during the day, but I doubt he would recognize much of the landscape from his travels at night, and this map may not be entirely accurate, especially if it’s a few decades out of date. Rivers change and forested areas can shift over time. Can any of the rest of you accurately read a map?”

“Quite well actually,” Szayel sniffed, and Hana blushed as she realized she’d offended the scientist. “However, since I suspect your question was directed towards those that would be going on this excursion, I would say that the silence speaks for itself.”

“Fine, you can come,” Grimmjow grudgingly conceded. “But if you can’t keep up I will leave you behind.”

“Fair enough,” Hana agreed.

Karin looked like she was about to argue some more, but then just sighed and seemingly gave up, muttering something under her breath that Ulquiorra didn’t catch, but could guess at.

“We will leave once we have gathered some supplies and Unohana-sama and Szayel clear Diaemus for duty,” Ulquiorra said. “The sooner we leave, the sooner you’ll have an accurately marked trail for the main force.”

“Yes, _proper_ supplies,” Karin said emphatically, eyeing Grimmjow. Ulquiorra again got the sense there was a tale in there somewhere, a theory that the Sixth confirmed by cringing at the glare his mate sent him.

“Alright, I get it already! But this time, I don’t want to be sharing a tent with anyone else,” he declared.

There was certainly a story he was missing here. Perhaps he would hear about it some other time, or he could just ask Orihime. She probably knew about the incident in question. After all, the human women rarely kept secrets from one another. Of course, as it involved Grimmjow, he might be better of not knowing.

He also wondered when he’d come to consider Grimmjow as someone worth keeping from harm, even harm caused by opening his mouth at the wrong time and in front of the wrong people. Perhaps, the Espada considered, he’d come to care at the same time he’d grown concerned for Grimmjow’s daughter.

Ajuga had possibly made the ultimate sacrifice so that his son could survive. If there were a chance that she was still alive, he would help Grimmjow get her back. He owed the girl his son’s life. A debt was a debt and Ulquiorra would pay this one gladly.


	50. Reprieve

This new game of Yammy’s wore him out mentally, rather than physically, and Ajuga’s loss had already battered his psychological defences. While her visits to the Kuchiki Manor for calligraphy lessons were infrequent, just the knowledge that she might show up on any given day offered him a bit of hope. In a way, a random ‘drop-in’ from her was like finding a prettily wrapped surprise package on one’s doorstep.

In contrast, he _knew_ to expect her at noon, on a mission to make sure Jushiro got his medicinal tea. He’d tried to push her away, for her own good, and the stubborn child always forced him into a one-sided conversation anyway. It wasn’t as if he could talk back to her to warn her that continuing their teacher-student relationship might endanger her. Now she was gone and not likely to return. That one little spark of happiness left to him was gone. His mental shields against his captor’s perpetual abuse were now as flimsy as paper as a result.

“Oi, you ready for me pet?” Yammy demanded as the brute muscled his way into the bathhouse. His voice sounded heavily muffled due to the water filling Byakuya’s ears.

He was unable to speak, but that didn’t matter. Yammy could not read, but that didn’t mean that the creature hadn’t found another way for Byakuya to communicate.

“I am ready Master,” Senbonzakura spoke for him, the voice of his Zanpakuto also muffled against his submerged eardrums.

Senbonzakura knelt on a cushion in the corner with his head bowed, his armour gone and wearing nothing more than a kimono. Senbonzakura’s presence served another purpose other than to translate for him. Yammy had taken to coercion instead of using the Claim against him. If he hesitated or failed in whatever task Yammy wanted of him, the monster would force Senbonzakura to take Byakuya’s place beneath him. Byakuya never wanted Senbonzakura to suffer such a violation again. The first, and so far only, time Yammy had forced himself on the manifestation of his Zanpakuto his abuse had nearly destroyed his blade.

A meaty fist reached into the water and grasped him by the hair, which floated in the liquid around him. He braced his restrained body, anticipating the pain he felt in his scalp as the thuggish Arrancar finally reached down to hopefully end this round of insanity. Yammy had instructed the servants to chain him up in the pool in such a way that left only his face exposed to the air. It had been a harrowing hour as the water lapped at his face. If he shifted the wrong way, the bathwater might flood his mouth or nose.

Relief turned to horror as water filled his throat. Yammy’s hand pushed him down, not pulled him up as he had expected. He would have floundered, but the restraints kept his limbs immobile. A massive wave of panic rushed through him along with the water. Fortunately, Yammy didn’t hold him under the water for long before pulling him up. He choked and coughed up the water he’d unwillingly inhaled, but was otherwise all right.

Now that he was out of the bath, he could open his eyes, though there wasn’t anything he wanted to see. Yammy wasn’t a pleasant specimen to look at while he was clothed. Unclothed, the Arrancar was ugliness incarnate. Somehow, the trails left by the water trickling down his naked body made him look that much more disturbing.

“How may I please you, Master?” Senbonzakura said subserviently.

Even though he hadn’t actually thought the thought, during the course of this new incarnation of their ‘relationship’ Yammy expected his ‘pet’ to make such an inquiry, whether he was capable of speech or not. Subsequently, Senbonzakura was covering for him. Byakuya still caught the tiny catch in his Zanpakuto’s voice as he asked the question. It was the only outward sign of their combined distress and disgust with the situation.

Then again, Kuchiki Byakuya was almost at a point where he’d ceased to care if Yammy beat him to death. What did he have left to live for? His family? The majority of them had long since abandoned him to this fate. Only Rukia remained, his younger sister safely out of Aizen’s reach in the Living World, though he would rather never see her again if it meant she remained ignorant of what had become of him.

Just because he couldn’t speak didn’t mean he couldn’t hear, and he knew exactly how low his relatives’ opinion of him was. His great-uncles, great-aunts and assorted cousins no longer saw him as someone fit to head the family, thanks to his status as a ‘pet.’ There were whispered conversations, conducted in crisp, upper-class accents over tea, about removing him from his official position as the leader of the Kuchiki Clan. There was also the lack of an heir to consider and as Yammy’s fuck toy, he would never be able to produce a child, let alone find a respectable woman who would want to marry such damaged goods. If he so much as looked at a woman, Yammy would probably just devour her.

The sad part was that he agreed with the Clan elders. What kind of representative was he to the outside world? He was little more than Yammy Llargo’s whore, to use as the Espada saw fit. Between his Shinigami duties and what his ‘Master’ forced him to do via the Claim upon him, he had very little time left to actually see to the family affairs, and even then, he needed assistance since he could no longer speak. He refused to give up the work he did with Ukitake Jushiro if he could help it and for now, that monster Aizen seemed to think his help was necessary. Those hours of paperwork were the only escape he had from the hellhole his home had become. Yammy had even managed to tarnish his room, everything in it ruined save for a single piece of artwork. Aside from the work of calligraphy given to him by a much-younger Ajuga, there was nothing left to engender any fond memories of the place, not even of his beloved Hisana.

He felt a pang in his chest as he recalled the destruction of the last bit of his late wife he had, Yammy heedlessly destroying her portrait. The lout’s smirk widened, mistaking the pain Byakuya unwillingly sent to him through the Claim as something else.

“Get to work pet,” Yammy commanded with a snarl, jerking Byakuya’s head up and positioning it before one of the parts of the brute’s anatomy he least wanted to see.

Trussed up like a hog for slaughter, the only thing holding him in place was Yammy’s meaty fist tangled in his hair. He briefly toyed with the idea of chopping all of his hair off so Yammy could no longer use it against him, but the thought of those fists engulfing his head and throat, cutting off his air supply, made him discard the idea just as quickly.

A knock on the door caught both of their attention, more so because the Kuchiki Manor’s staff knew better than to interfere during Yammy’s ‘playtime.’ Confirmation that the intruder wasn’t a servant occurred the moment the door to the bath slid open with a loud ‘BANG!’

“Yo!”

The interloper hadn’t even waited for permission, which to Byakuya could only mean one of two things... either he or she was suicidal, or a fellow Espada.

It turned out to be the latter. Nnoitra Gilga strode into the room as if he didn’t have a care in the world, the double-crescent blade of his Zanpakuto thrown casually over one shoulder. It barely cleared the doorframe. The Espada’s pet followed hesitantly in his wake, perhaps because she wanted to stay out of range of the weapon he carried. _She_ at least had the decency to turn her suddenly horror filled gaze away once she realized they’d stumbled in on Yammy as he was about to rape his captive’s face. The Fifth’s fraccion and the human woman he’d Claimed trailed behind Matsumoto Rangiku. The first stood at attention behind the one he served, as if everything going on before him was normal while the second glared hatefully at Yammy. Byakuya had the feeling she only remained by her Mate’s side out of sheer willpower and a sense of self-preservation. Of course, there was also a good chance her mate’s Claim kept her where she was. If so, the Arrancar had a good grasp of the situation and knew better than to let her interfere.

“The fuck you want Nnoitra? Can’t you see I am busy?” Yammy snarled.

The other Espada sneered back, ignoring the Tenth’s outrage at the interruption.

“Aizen wants us all to attend some bullshit meeting, and since he didn’t want the messenger fried, he sent me to get your sorry ass,” Nnoitra snorted. “Ulquiorra’s missing brat fluttered in this morning.”

That instantly caught Byakuya’s attention, his desperation to hear more overriding any shame he might have felt over a former colleague and a human woman seeing him in such a position. If Diaemus had escaped, he would have news of Ajuga’s fate. Furthermore, the boy would know the location of the Swarm’s stronghold. If Aizen was half as clever as he bragged, it meant that the meeting would likely be a planning session for a direct assault on the Swarm’s base. He silently prayed Aizen would allow him to participate in such a campaign, not only to rescue Ajuga, but because going would give him a respite from Yammy’s abuse.

“Fuck,” Yammy snarled, tossing Byakuya away in frustration. Bound as he was, he helplessly sank beneath the pool’s surface. Worse, when he didn’t immediately surface to follow his Master out, Yammy began yanking on the Claim to force him to try to climb out of the bath. That in turn made him struggle and use up what oxygen he had stored in his body all the faster.

He felt the displacement of the bathwater around him as someone jumped in next to him. A pair of strong arms gathered him up and thankfully lifted his head out of the bath. Byakuya coughed and sputtered, gagging and hacking the moment his nose and mouth were free of the water. He could hear arguing in the background, but all that mattered to him was the blessed air his lungs took in as his rescuer dragged his body out of the pool and placed his tied form on the tiles. He felt a dry towel cover him and he looked up to see a frightfully worried Tesra hovering protectively over a very determined Tatsuki. She wasted little time unbuckling the restraints, but left the bands and their clips in place. Her hands clenched as she glared up at her mate, clearly wanting to remove them, only to see him shake his head and point his chin at Yammy’s broad back. Byakuya understood his hesitation. Interfering to save a pet’s life was one thing but any more than that might bring down a punishment on them, courtesy of Aizen’s edicts about fighting over the Claimed.

At least his limbs were free and the blood flowing to them once more. He rubbed his left arm with a water-wrinkled hand as the familiar sensation of pins and needles followed.

“Thank you.”

Senbonzakura, still on his cushion, had turned his face towards them, even as Byakuya clutched the towel around his naked and now shivering body.

“No problem,” the woman growled, shooting another baleful glance at his ‘Master.’ If looks could kill, Tatsuki’s glare would have taken Yammy apart at the molecular level.

Rangiku appeared both disgusted and enraged as she took in what had almost happened to him. The former Fukutaichou did her best not to look at Senbonzakura’s servile pose, or Senbonzakura at all if she could help it. Instead, she kept her eyes on the now-empty pool. Some relief, probably that he was unharmed and a great deal of sadness at her inability to help, crept across her pretty features. Shinigami simply did not manifest their Zanpakuto in front of others. Such a thing was an unthinkable taboo, yet here they were. She’d probably figured out by now that he hadn’t done so voluntarily. Byakuya was doubly grateful she didn’t’ know the particulars.

Meanwhile Nnoitra was busy berating Yammy for his stupidity. To Byakuya, it sounded more like taunting. There was no disgust or anger over Yammy’s treatment of his pet, but there _was_ a great deal of contempt and incredulity in the tall Espada’s put-downs of the Tenth’s erroneous belief that someone chained up could swim or walk.

“Didja think he’d sprout fins and gills, you moron? Seriously, you’re about as bright as that sponge over there,” Nnoitra spat, jerking his thumb at a shelf on the wall, laden with bathing supplies. “Nah, I take that back. The sponge is smarter. Let me know what Aizen says when you go beggin’ for another toy because yours drowned.”

Yammy let out a nasty snort and pulled his discarded clothes on as the two Espada traded insults.

“Oi Chicchai-Hime, get dressed already. You heard the fucking bug. We got a meeting to get to,” Yammy ordered him. Nnoitra curled a lip at the jab.

“That’s rich, coming from someone who’s all legs and no brain, _centipede_.”

Byakuya wasn’t about to argue with any command that put clothes on his nude body, even if he could refuse it. Now that he’d done what he came to do, Nnoitra led his pack away with a promise to see Yammy when he got to the meeting hall, if, as the Fifth said snidely in parting, the Tenth could find his way there.

“Get in here and get my pet fixed up,” Yammy snarled out to the household help as he finished tying his sash around his waist and pushed the door open. Byakuya kept from letting out a sigh of relief that he no longer had to look at the thug’s bare backside as he stalked out of the bath and disappeared down the hall.

The servants that were always hovering just out of sight swiftly entered to room to do as told, preparing him for public presentation. His hair would still be damp, but that was fine. He could live with it so long as he could flee this room and find out what had happened to Ajuga.

Aizen had decided to hold the emergency meeting, not in the usual meeting hall, as one would have expected, but rather in his personal garden. Their overlord had summoned every Espada, their fraccion and their pets to attend. The only exceptions seemed to be Grimmjow, Ulquiorra, Karin, Orihime and Hana. Jushiro glanced around the gathering, taking note of those gathered on such short notice. Even Gin was here with Shinso at his waist, and while Jushiro didn’t see much of the ex-Taichou, the last time he had seen Shinso anywhere near Gin had been during the Winter War. What surprised him was that the summons had included everyone, including his houseguest. Soi Fon sat next to Nanao, and the poor woman kept tossing glances towards Ggio, who remained kneeling beside Barragan with his eyes staring dead ahead. The only sign of the former fraccion’s inner turmoil were the tight fists held at his sides and his stiff posture. If Jushiro was any judge, the Arrancar was doing everything he could to fight the Claim upon him.

“I don’t like this,” Jushiro muttered under his breath.

“It is odd,” he heard her agree with some apprehension.

Since Starrk had never technically Claimed her, Nanao had never attended one of these meetings before. The fact that she’d been included this time, as well as Soi Fon, led him to believe something serious was afoot. All of Aizen’s strongest warriors were here, save for the Sixth, the Fourth, their mates and young Hana. He had no explanation for Grimmjow and Ulquiorra’s absence.

If Starrk knew what was going on, the Espada kept his knowledge to himself. In fact, Jushiro swore his Master was sleeping, sprawled out on the small nest of pillows a few feet away. Lilynette sat pouting on one of the larger cushions, close enough to kick Starrk if she felt he needed it. From her irritated posture, the First’s smaller half was just in the dark as he about the purpose behind the gathering.

Aizen finally arrived and everyone quieted down and found their seats. The number of irked faces was larger than normal, as their leader had pulled them off their patrols and away from their duties. Yammy looked particularly pissed, glowering at everything.

“My dear Arrancar, I have wonderful news to deliver,” Aizen announced. His tone suggested he was about to bestow some magnanimous gift to the lot of them. Jushiro could do without the ‘benevolent ruler’ routine. Apparently, the Tenth had the same opinion.

“Nothing you could say could possibly be more wonderful than what I was about ready to do to my pet when you had ‘stick bug’ here interrupt me,” Yammy scowled, crossing his arms and pouting.

Most of the ‘pets’ flinched at Yammy’s crude statement. He almost joined them in wincing, but his long years of training let him hide behind a carefully constructed mask of indifference. It didn’t do anything for the disgust he felt, however. He almost wished that Yammy would go too far with the man, if it meant that Aizen would allow Starrk to Claim the noble in the Tenth’s stead.

“Young Diaemus returned to us this morning. In doing so, he has brought back the location of the Swarm’s base in this Realm,” Aizen announced with a smile that looked as if it was genuine. Jushiro had no illusion that their sovereign cared about the boy. They’d searched for the Swarm’s base for nearly ten years during the spring months to no avail. If Ulquiorra’s son knew where to find it, of course Aizen would be eager to put an end to the attacks.

Murmurs erupted amongst those gathered, most of them excited. Diaemus’s return certainly would explain Ulquiorra and Orihime’s absence.

“What about Ajuga?” Mila Rose spoke up, asking the question that was on a large number of their minds.

“She remains a prisoner,” Aizen answered, holding his hand up to forestall any further questions, which everyone wisely heeded. “Grimmjow and Ulquiorra have already taken their pets north to scout ahead of the main attack force. Now that we know the general location of their outpost, we will wipe it out of existence. However, I do not wish to leave the city leaderless and defenceless, lest the Swarm launch an attack while my forces are marching to battle. As such, during our absence, Ukitake Jushiro and Ise Nanao will be in charge of the city.”

Most eyes shifted to look at the surprised young woman. Thankfully, she recovered quickly from the shock created by the proclamation. Jushiro was very glad he’d schooled his features in response to Yammy’s foul mouth. His mask covered up astonishment as well as revulsion.

“It would be an honour, Kami-sama. I will certainly do my best,” she said and bowed deeply.

“A good choice,” Starrk grunted softly, to which Jushiro silently agreed with. There were a few mild protests at putting some pet Shinigami in charge, but they died quickly with a single pulse of Aizen’s power.

“My Division is gathering provisions for the trip. We will leave first thing tomorrow morning. I have decided, after some deliberation, on those who will accompany me to help exterminate these troublesome insects.”

‘Accompanying him,’ Jushiro realized, meant that Aizen was actually going to leave the city and lead the expedition. Since usurping the Spirit King’s throne, Aizen hadn’t left the city once. In fact, he hardly traveled further than the 1st Division. Granted, someone casually strolling down the Rukongai streets with his reiatsu levels would probably leave a trail of the dead and dying in his wake and the Realms were already off-balance as it was.

Their ruler started to call out the names of those he wanted with him. Szayel seemed less than pleased when his name was called, but stayed silent. His entire body radiated nervousness, probably at the thought of having to leave his Division. Jushiro didn’t blame him. The last time Karin and Grimmjow had been out of the city the scientist had ended up under Aizen. With both of them gone, there would be no one to prevent another ‘punishment’ should the Seventh incur Aizen’s wrath again.

Unfortunately, such an outcome was inevitable when Aizen reeled off both Renji and Nemu’s names as participants in the war party along with their ‘Master.’

**“** FUCK THAT **!** **”** Renji roared, rising to his feet in protest.

“I must object, Kami-sama!” Szayel spoke out at the same time, although it was hard to hear him over the colourful obscenities coming out of Renji’s mouth.

All eyes flew towards the scientist in disbelief. Despite Renji’s violent outburst and the fact that as a pet and a slave such disrespect warranted an immediate punishment, Aizen turned his attention to Szayel instead of the redhead. The Seventh was too busy sending Renji a glare that at least got the other to shut his mouth and resume his seat, even if his entire posture radiated barely suppressed hostility, to notice that Aizen’s eyes were on him.

Jushiro didn’t like the way those eyes gleamed.

Renji letting his mouth and his temper get the better of him wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, but anyone who knew of the games that Aizen liked to play with Szayel had to question the Espada’s sanity for drawing Aizen’s attention his way by backing up his pet’s opinion. With Renji back under control, it was only now that Szayel seemed to realize _he_ was in trouble. His face lost much of its color as he turned back and bowed deeply to Aizen.

“Please permit me to leave either Nemu or Abarai behind to tend to my children. I do not wish for them to be left unsurprised, and it would be foolish to bring them with us.”

Szayel’s concern for his children, though understandable, had overruled his common sense. Aizen did not like having his orders questioned, let alone questioned before an audience. Jushiro feared that Szayel would dig himself a deeper pit by continuing to talk, unable to stop as the worry for his children’s safety blinded him.

“Please, at least let me leave Nemu behind to monitor the Grid as well. It would be foolish to...”

“Szayel, sit down and be quiet before I tan your hide the way Karin informed me I should if you were to do something stupid while she was gone.”

Starrk’s bored voice wafted up from the pillows, but it was loud enough to cut through Szayel’s pleading. His interruption drew everyone’s attention towards the First’s corner of the garden. Jushiro included himself among those astonished that his Master chose to speak up. Then again, perhaps he should have foreseen this. Karin and Grimmjow were part of Starrk’s pack since they were living in his den, and as such, anything they owned belonged to Starrk and Lilynette as well. That included Szayel, his mate and his children and the hot-tempered idiot with the tattoos. Lilynette narrowed her one eye and gave Renji a dirty look for saying anything in the first place, while Starrk yawned and finished what he wanted to say.

“Nanao and Jushiro are more than capable of watching them and they can remain on the Estate while we are away. Your children will have adequate protection. Now pipe down.”

Szayel looked about ready to protest again, but suddenly thought better of it and sent a furtive glance at Aizen. ‘Kami-sama’ gave the scientist a look that almost seemed to beg him to keep talking. The scientist wisely bit his lip and thanked Starrk for his generous offer.

Since no Espada ranked lower than Szayel, the meeting quickly wrapped up. Excited chatter rose up about the room as people started to discuss the mission or moan about having to stay behind. Jushiro decided to take his cue from Starrk and observe. It kept him from thinking too hard about the impending job of temporarily running the Seireitei.

Nnoitra seemed to be issuing orders to Rangiku and Tatsuki, the two pregnant women nodding at his words as they followed him out. Tesra looked almost sick, clearly not wanting to leave his mate behind with her friend but having little choice in the matter. Unohana would also remain in the city, as there were far too many pregnant women with Claims on their persons and hybrid children in their wombs. Their due dates fell all over the calendar thanks to the Arrancar sires’ odd assortment of base animals and in some cases, an inability to determine the date of conception. Ironically, Aizen had not excused Harribel from the mission. She was still in the early stages of her pregnancy though and as such, would be quite capable of fighting. She and Toshiro were too effective at taking out large numbers of insects with their combined attacks to leave behind.

Jushiro had been surprised to find out she was expecting. Hana had filled him in on the reason her three sister fraccion had descended upon the Estate a few evenings after Ajuga and Diaemus’s abduction. Starrk had also informed him of the Third’s condition, primarily because he had agreed to take the child on as a fraccion to protect it. He couldn’t really blame Harribel for asking such a thing. The evidence of Barragan’s poor treatment of women currently resided in one of his many spare rooms and there had been the Second’s little attempt on Ajuga to consider. The baby, as a fraccion, would technically have a higher place in Starrk’s pack than he did. As Starrk’s pet, Jushiro was of the lowest rank in the immediate pack, what with Nanao being a fraccion and Karin mated to Grimmjow.

However, he guessed that Starrk might have agreed to the arrangement for other reasons. The male half of the First hadn’t shared those reasons with him, but Jushiro knew that with Ajuga and Hana nearly grown, there was a dearth of childish laughter around the Estate. He found he missed the days when the girls were young and into everything. Maybe he would ask Lilynette later if his suspicions were correct.

“You have any work to tend to before we go?” Starrk asked him, showing no signs of prying himself off the pillows.

“I do,” Jushiro admitted, dragging his brain away from his depressing analysis of the household pecking order and telling himself it didn’t matter. In reality, Starrk’s ‘enforcement’ of the pack hierarchy was almost non-existent. Lilynette seemed to be the one to issue the reminders and thankfully, she was easily distracted with sweets, compliments and games.

“You are dismissed. Go do what you must. I have something on my plate I have to deal with shortly. I’ll see you at supper.”

Offering his Master a small bow due to Aizen’s presence, Jushiro left the meeting, his mind whirling with the thought that Aizen and his most powerful warriors were going to be gone from the city and what that might mean for those left in charge.

Szayel had made a terrible mistake and he knew it. The only thing he wanted to do now was to beat a hasty retreat, but the overwhelming power of Aizen’s reiatsu hovering over his shoulders warned him that doing so would result in falling flat on his face in front of the others. Karin and Grimmjow were gone and he had messed up, stupidly going so far as to challenge a direct order before witnesses. He had all but called Aizen an idiot for not letting Nemu stay behind to watch the Grid, even though they both knew almost anyone in his Division could handle such a menial task.

“Nemu, see that the twins are prepared for their stay at Starrk’s den,” he requested. His golden eyes held a different message for her, one he hoped she would understand. One that told her to get out of the way of the blow he knew was coming. He was down to damage control. He had to get everyone he could to safety, starting with the mother of his children. While she’d said nothing about her inclusion in the strike team, Szayel wouldn’t put it past Aizen to hurt her as a way of punishing him.

“Hai, Szayel-sama,” Nemu bowed and to Szayel’s relief, made her retreat. His eyes lit next on the seething redhead parked on the grass where his Mistress’s Claim forced him to kneel. He would dearly love to know the exact terms with which the former Third made Renji comply, but to all observers, Szayel still appeared in charge, and for that he was grateful. While he wished he could truly punish his supposed pet for being so stupid as to say anything in Aizen’s presence, he’d done the same, albeit not as loudly. He might fault the delivery, but not the motive.

“Abarai…”

“Will remain here for the moment, as will you.”

Aizen’s smooth, authoritative voice interrupted his own and the scientist froze. The garden emptied as everyone left to perform his or her assigned duties. Szayel’s fear climbed higher as each person left the green enclosure, until it appeared that only he, his pet-in-name-only and Aizen remained.

“Szayel, my dear Szayel,” Aizen sighed. He clasped is hands together and shook his head. “Have you learned nothing over the years?”

He felt his mouth go dry and remained silent, knowing Aizen would turn any answer he gave against him. Instead, he bowed his head and looked down at his hands. Since Aizen expected them both to leave with the strike team in the morning, whatever punishment the two of them received would at least leave them able to move. That ruled out any overt brutality or the sort of drawn-out games that took place in the dungeon below the Palace. Why, oh why, he berated himself again, had he opened his mouth?

“Before we get to your punishment for calling my plans into question in front of your fellow Espada, let us first deal with your mutt.”

Aizen turned his gaze to Renji, who glared back with undisguised hate. His clenched his fists tight enough that his nails drew blood as they dug into his palms. The inked Shinigami looked like he was going to say something about the dog reference, but shut his mouth so hard that Szayel actually heard the redhead’s teeth ‘snap’ together.

“I am impressed. You’ve managed to muzzle him far more efficiently than Kuchiki Byakuya ever did. I daresay you’ve _almost_ trained him to behave better than you yourself do,” Aizen chuckled in amusement. Szayel didn’t share the sentiment. Neither, apparently, did Renji.

“Just get it over with already,” his ‘pet’ grumbled, crossing his arms and looking away.

“It’s a pity. As is true for most mangy hounds, merely kicking you won’t stop you from growling,” Aizen noted, sounding almost philosophical. “No, I think we’ll have to try something a tad more… permanent this time around to ensure you keep any future opinions to yourself. Beatings and whippings don’t seem to have any effect.”

The description was apt enough. Szayel knew that from years of putting up with Renji, with or without his soul intact. He was a pain in the ass in either state. Even a Claim-enforced order hadn’t been adequate to keep Renji quiet when the redhead had something to say. Unfortunately, Szayel didn’t like the look Aizen gave the two of them and his smile sent shivers up Szayel’s spine. He knew what twisted desires lay behind it. Renji suddenly uncrossed his arms, wary now of the predator sizing him and his Master up as if contemplating the items on a menu. Szayel wanted to throttle the redhead… had he only now just realized what kind of danger he was in?

“Are you going to need Szayel for this, or can I give him his punishment as Karin directed me?”

All three pairs of eyes darted to the pile of pillows and the sleepy Espada still resting there. He’d seen Lilynette take off after Jushiro, so he’d assumed that the rest of the First had left as well. No one, not even Aizen by the way he suddenly adjusted his posture, realized Starrk had remained behind. Szayel blinked a few times as he realized what the First had said. What was that about _Starrk_ administering his punishment? Then he remembered Starrk speaking up earlier about Karin giving him permission to mete out a ‘tanning’ if he didn’t stop trying to convince Aizen to let Nemu stay behind with his cubs.

He wasn’t sure if he ought to feel hope or feel worried.

“And in what manner did Karin instruct you to punish him?” Aizen inquired, raising one eyebrow.

There was something strange about the way that their leader looked down upon one of his strongest Espada and something equally strange about the lack of fear in Starrk’s apathetic tone. If he didn’t know any better, he would say there was a standoff in progress. Starrk had already intervened on Szayel’s behalf once, dragging him out of Aizen’s playroom and confronting Aizen about the severity of Szayel’s punishment. That he might be doing so again, this time acting before Aizen could do his worst, made the ‘hope versus worry’ argument going on in Szayel’s gut lean in the direction of ‘hope’.

“Something about ‘tanning his hide,’” Starrk answered with a sleepy yawn. “I assume she meant to give him a sound spanking as opposed to actually skinning him and processing his skin for a jacket. I made sure to clarify that though before she left. Just in case.”

Szayel paled at both the idea of lying over Starrk’s lap and the image of his epidermis spread out on a tanning rack under the hot sun. Even Renji looked shocked, then ill and the Seventh decided he didn’t want to know whatever it was that Renji saw in his imagination.

“Perhaps, a compromise?”

Aizen leaned back in his chair, a thin smile on his face. He didn’t seem quite ready to concede that Szayel’s Mistress had found a way around letting Aizen do what he wanted as far as disciplining her pet. “For practicality’s sake, I will refrain from teaching this slum-bred mongrel,” and here Aizen flicked his eyes towards Renji, “his place until we return. As for you, Szayel…”

Aizen’s smile widened and the bottom dropped out of Szayel’s stomach. Despite Starrk’s presence and his unspoken assurance that things wouldn’t get too out of hand, he felt a chill race down his spine.

The first rays of sunlight bounced off the inner walls of the Seireitei as those chosen by Aizen to head north gathered and accepted their bags of supplies. Jushiro saw that Szayel was walking a bit oddly and that Renji kept looking at his right hand and blushing. Something had clearly happened after Aizen had dismissed them. Starrk had lagged behind as well. The ‘something I need to deal with’ his Master had mentioned suddenly made sense, but whatever had occurred, Starrk had kept the details to himself.

Aizen busied himself overseeing the preparation and those going were giving last minute instructions to those who were not. Yammy, surprisingly, was to stay behind, no doubt to keep the Numerous in line while the rest of the Espada and Kami were away. The hulking Espada didn’t seem too pleased with the decision since Aizen had ordered Byakuya to go. Now that Jushiro thought about it, only a few of the ‘pets’ would accompany their Masters. Not all of the Espadas’ fraccion were included either. Harribel’s girls weren’t going and Aizen had charged Sung Sun with the job of overseeing the Arrancar patrols since Yammy couldn’t be trusted, or bothered for that matter, to handle the task.

Jushiro turned his attention back towards Szayel’s family. Renji knelt before a tearful Vindula, assuring the little girl they would be back with Ajuga before she knew it. Behind her, Abisara nodded solemnly as he received instructions from his father and returned his mother’s embrace.

Having already received his orders from Aizen last night and Starrk this morning, Jushiro made his way over towards the twins who would be living with him for the next week or so. Vindula was excited and he had promised to let her tend to his woefully neglected gardens. With the renewed Swarm attacks, no one had had the time to see to them properly. The poor quality of the beds reminded him of his sisters, who he had hidden away in the Rukongai. He had toyed with the idea of visiting them, but he always feared that doing so might lead Aizen or his Arrancar to them. While they lacked power, their bloodlines might prove a tempting target for any Arrancar looking to replace a pet. He considered such a visit too dangerous, especially now that so many of the Arrancar-Shinigami matches had resulted in pregnancies.

“Are you two ready to visit the Estate?” he asked the twins.

“Yes,” Vindula replied, rubbing the tears out of her eyes with a wad of white cloth that she hastily tucked back into one of her dress pockets. Sniffling, she tried to smile up at Jushiro, though her wings drooped, indicating her real feelings.

The white-haired man gave her a gentle smile in return and thanked the heavens he’d remembered to restock his supply of lollipops. He had a feeling those tears would vanish the moment she saw the tulip gardens on the east side of the house, the violas that had re-seeded themselves in the adjacent lawn and a few strawberry-flavoured candies.

“That’s my brave girl,” Renji smiled at her affectionately and ruffled her hair, much to her protest. Then he turned stood up and faced Jushiro, intent on giving some last minute child-care tips. “The only thing I can think is to check on Abisara after you turn out their lights for the night. He likes to pretend that he’s asleep when he actually has half a dozen papers hidden under his pillow and a flashlight. I usually let him stay up an extra hour before taking his reading light for the night.”

“I always wondered why you took my flashlight at that point.”

Abisara blushed in embarrassment as he said this and Renji laughed, reaching down and making Abisara look at him by lifting his chin with one finger.

“I ain’t as dumb as people like to make me out to be,” Renji snorted. “You two behave for Ukitake-Taichou, okay?”

“You will bring Papa and Ajuga back, right?” Vindula pleaded. Renji pulled her into a quick hug and then stood back and favoured her with a cocky grin.

“Of course I will, but I doubt he needs me to watch his back. Your old man is plenty strong. He beat me, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, but he won’t be in his lab this time,” Abisara pointed out. Jushiro silently agreed with the boy. Szayel was an ‘indoors-only’ sort of creature and he had no idea how the scientist would fare while roughing it in the great outdoors.

“I am right here you know,” Szayel sighed. “And why aren’t the two of you this concerned about your mother?”

“Mama is unbreakable. You said so yourself Papa,” Vindula answered innocently while her brother nodded and added, “That’s true. Grandfather made her to endure many different climate extremes, as well as battle conditions. Her poisons alone…”

“Touché,” Szayel conceded, cutting his son off before he could list more of Nemu’s lethal accessories. Then he raised one pink eyebrow. “You’ve been reading that madman’s notes again, haven’t you Abisara? I thought I told you that if you wanted to go over them, you were to do it in my presence, so that I could explain the flaws in his logic,” he chided.

Abisara hung his head, but shrugged. “Yes, Tou-san.”

Jushiro understood the warning he heard in Szayel’s voice. He wasn’t sure that the word ‘Grandfather’ really applied to the late head of the 12th Division and he found the images that accompanied the thought of Kurotsuchi Mayuri in such a role deeply disturbing.

“We are leaving,” Aizen’s voice rose over the din, calling everyone’s attention to him.

With a last round of hugs, Jushiro hoisted Vindula onto his hip so she could wave at her departing family and her guardian as they departed through the Northern Gate. After a few minutes, the great stone slab lowered and the strike team was gone. While Jushiro hoped the war party could eliminate the Swarm’s stronghold in the Soul Society, getting Ajuga back, safe and sound, was far more important to him. He could only pray that Grimmjow and Karin’s group, having a twenty-four-hour head start and moving faster than the larger group of attackers, could get to her in time.

In the meantime, he and Nanao had a city to oversee and he was under no illusions about the state in which Aizen would expect it to be when he returned. Taking a deep breath, he decided that it would be best to escort the twins to the Estate and break open that bag of lollipops. Vindula and Abisara weren’t the only ones in need of some sweets.

This was the last thing she expected to see when she’d emerged from one of her hidden ‘short cuts’ into the Soul Society and if she’d been in something other than her ‘traveling clothes,’ she would have pinched herself. Instead, she watched the motley parade of departing Arrancar and a few of their captives from the limb of a concealing evergreen.

Aizen was leaving the city. Part of her wanted to retreat home and fetch her own little rag-tag band of survivors. With the usurping snake gone, there was no better time to try to retake the city. However, the practical strategist in her knew that such a victory would be short-lived. The inevitable battle upon Aizen’s return would cause untold casualties and cause greater damage to Realms already at the tipping point as far as the balance of souls. No, she told herself, it was much more important to find out the reason Aizen had seen fit to leave his well-guarded sanctuary for parts unknown, taking the majority of his powerhouses with him.

It was a good thing she was a master of stealth and speed, she thought as she leapt from her branch and followed at a discreet distance, taking great care to conceal her reiatsu as best she could. As far as she could tell, whatever was going on certainly warranted further investigation and it simply wouldn’t do to be caught spying.


	51. A long Trip North: Part 1

The journey that had taken Diaemus four days of non-stop travel proved longer and more difficult than the scouting party expected. The rest of them lacked the boy’s impressive speed and their pace was limited to that of the slowest member of their team. In addition, they were following and charting a course on the map, as well as marking a trail for those following behind.

“I believe it is time to rest,” Ulquiorra commented, coming to a stop.

“We just rested,” Grimmjow growled in frustration and glared at his fellow Espada.

“That was early this morning.” Ulquiorra walked calmly up to him and spoke in a lower voice, not wanting the others to hear what he had to say. “Our Mates cannot keep this pace any longer and I do not wish to experience the fallout of leaving Orihime, or Karin for that matter, behind.”

Grimmjow blinked and looked back at the four other members of their troop. Hana leaned wearily against a tree, panting desperately for breath. Orihime looked haggard as she held onto her son’s back, the human woman lacking any method of traveling at faster speeds. Karin was also breathing heavily. His Mate wasn’t accustomed to such long, fast-paced trips while breathing in such cold air. While she could use Shunpo, she was incapable of matching his and Ulquiorra’s speeds. Her skills with that ability were just slightly above average, perhaps Fukutaichou level at the best. Diaemus appeared exhausted as well. Unohana and Orihime had done everything they could to heal the boy before their team had left and he was carrying the additional weight of his mother. The chill that surrounded them was strength sapping and if he could feel its bite, it probably also adversely affected the others.

Ulquiorra was right. The women and Diaemus needed some downtime.

“I understand your frustration, but rushing headlong into danger and arriving too tired to properly fight will do Ajuga no good. The Swarm has had plenty of time to set traps and they might have increased their patrols in anticipation of an attack or a rescue attempt. Diaemus’s escape will have put the Swarm’s leaders on alert.”

Grimmjow wanted to snap at the Fourth, to inform him that he had no fucking clue as to how he felt, but then, Ulquiorra didn’t know of Karin’s bloodlines, nor did he know what that meant for Ajuga. As worried as he was about Diaemus having fed from his daughter, his real fear was the one he shared with his mate: that the Swarm would put Ajuga on the Spirit King’s Throne. That would put his daughter and Karin in Aizen’s crosshairs and put a huge wrench in the rebellion he and Szayel were trying to knit together.

Unfortunately, Ulquiorra was also correct about their chances in their current condition. If they charged in, they risked endangering Karin, and he didn’t want a base full of Generals like the one that had taken his child getting their claws on his Mate. He didn’t trust leaving her behind either. He knew she would follow him anyway. Neither could they leave Orihime behind. They didn’t know what kind of shape Ajuga might be in and Orihime was the only one who could get his daughter mobile quickly. Finally, as much as he loathed admitting it, Hana was the only one who could read the damn map and adjust the calculations necessary to lead them to the Swarm’s lair. He hated relying on others, which only added to his frustration. What he really wanted to do was blow the place sky-high with as many Cero as he could manage, but that would have to wait.

He ran his fingers through his hair, knowing he had few options, and called out over his shoulder to the others.

“We make camp here. We move in six hours.”

“Thank Kami!” Hana exclaimed, falling onto her back into the thick pine needles that covered the forest floor, drawing her forearm over her eyes and panting. Her breath made a series of white clouds in the frigid air. “How the hell did you do this in four days?”

The girl tossed the question at Diaemus as Orihime slid from his back and landed on shaky legs.

Diaemus didn’t bother to answer, for the question had been rhetorical. If it was anyone who understood how he had managed it, it would be Hana.

Orihime and Karin dug into the packs, bringing out food and setting up the tarps to cover them. Needing to burn some energy before he accidentally snapped at someone, and knowing that Ulquiorra would guard the women with his life, Grimmjow tested the air and started looking for something with real flavour to eat, preferably a boar.

Unfortunately, game was still a little slim this far north and winter hadn’t quite loosened its hold on the land yet. The best he could do was to chase down two rabbits and a scrawny, wild chicken. Those were hardly worth bringing back, but he did so anyway. When he tried to hand them over to Karin, she just looked at them with a raised eyebrow and crossed her arms.

“You caught them, you clean them,” she stated when he continued to stand there with the game held before him. “Did you honestly think anything was going to have changed since the last trip?” she asked.

“Well, a few things,” he replied and pushed his luck by leering at her openly.

“Men,” she groaned and narrowed her eyes. “Go deal with those. I’ll add the meat to the soup.”

Shrugging, he moved to the edge of camp and had them skinned, plucked, and gutted in no time. Thankfully, the second time he presented them to her, she took the carcasses, scraped what meat there was from the bones and added it to the pot of soup she was making for dinner. Boiling it that way would make the meat edible, but not particularly easy to chew. Still, it was a hot meal and he didn’t think anyone in the scouting party would turn that down.

Orihime and Hana lay beneath the tarp coverings, fast asleep beneath their cloaks and a quick scan of the area for reiatsu told him that Ulquiorra and his son were patrolling the perimeter. Letting out a sigh, he turned back to his mate and realized her face, bent over the soup pot, was wet. He watched a thin, wet drop of saltwater make its way from the corner of her eye to her jawline. He could count the number of times he’d seen her cry in the last fifteen years on one hand and he stared at her in disbelief.

“Karin?” he asked hesitantly.

“It’s just from the smoke,” she lied and hastily wiped the tears away.

Now that he had calmed down, he could feel the emotional turmoil racing through his mate, and it bothered him. He was supposed to care for her, keep her in good health so that she could provide him more offspring to continue his line. In her current state, sex was completely out of the question and given the circumstances, he couldn’t blame her for not wanting to breed. He couldn’t even protect one cub. Why would she feel inclined to grant him more?

_Not animals anymore,_ he reminded himself and growled at the urge to whine until it disappeared. _This is no one_ _’_ _s fault and we are going to get Ajuga back, rip the Swarm into so many little pieces there will be nothing left for the crows to scavenge, and then I am going to bring Karin home and have celebration sex until neither one of us are capable of moving,_ he promised himself. _We_ _’_ _re then going to tear Aizen limb from limb, and if I am lucky, in a few months_ _’_ _time, her belly will be round with my cub._

Grimmjow plopped down next to her and put one arm around her shoulders. If he couldn’t do anything about Ajuga at that moment, he could at least remind her that he was here. She stiffened, until she realized he wasn’t moving in for a grope. Letting the ladle rest against the side of the collapsible kettle, she leaned into him, though she stayed quiet, staring at the fire crackling beneath the bubbling soup pot. It was a luxury she’d insisted on bringing, in part because of the hunger she’d suffered on their last excursion and because she, Hana, and Orihime didn’t have digestive systems capable of handling raw meat.

They stayed like that until they heard the sound of a pair of black, leathery wings beating overhead. The rush of cold air and pine needles brought his attention to Diaemus as the boy returned from his scouting flight.

“I believe we are on track,” he reported to Hana, who sat up groggily and brushed off the light debris that Diaemus’s landing scattered over her cloak and in her hair. “There are no signs of any aerial or land patrols either.”

“I figured as much,” she yawned and reached for her map. Rolling it out, she put an ‘X’ on it, to indicate their current location. They would leave a horizontal, white mark, the symbol of the 1st Division, in wax laced with titanium on the south-facing bark of a nearby tree, to indicate to the larger group that followed that the area was safe. If Szayel and Nemu were adjusting their own copy of the map properly, Aizen’s group would run across it in another day, two at the latest if there had been a hold up. Knowing Aizen, any delays would be minimal in number and short.

The teenager nodded with satisfaction, folded her map and tucked it away in one of their packs. “At this rate we should get there tomorrow night or early in the morning on the day after.”

“The Swarm isn’t really active in the morning. We should push on after a short rest and try to get there tomorrow night. We can move in at first light,” Karin declared before biting her lip. Then she looked up at her mate. “How much faster do you think we could travel if you were to carry me, Diaemus-kun carried Hana-chan and Ulquiorra carried Orihime?” she asked.

Grimmjow paused to consider that option.

“Much faster than this. Maybe even faster if we enter our Resurreccións, but it’s going to require a tremendous expenditure of reiatsu,” he confessed.

Staying in one’s Resurrección wasn’t a good use of one’s energy, as it required far more of one’s reiatsu to maintain the form and use its abilities. That, and the fact that they were traveling with those who did not possess such advanced abilities, was the reason he and Ulquiorra had remained in their sealed states. However, if they limited themselves to one day of travel in their Resurrección forms, the ground they would cover might make the price they’d pay worth it, especially if they could rest for a full eight hours afterwards. It would mean the girls would have to stand guard duty during the night, but with Karin’s sight, Grimmjow knew she’d be a much better ‘watch dog’ than either he or Ulquiorra. Her ability to ‘see’ reiatsu wasn’t dependent on the time of day.

“That idea is sound,” Ulquiorra agreed, walking out of the woods to join them at just the right time to impart some drama to his return.

_Bet he was eavesdropping and waiting for the chance to make an entrance,_ Grimmjow grumbled inwardly.

“I trust whatever held your interest over there is no longer fascinating?” Karin asked. She raised one eyebrow to emphasize the fact she knew he’d been listening. Ulquiorra didn’t answer, but he did shift from one foot to another, much as a child might do when caught doing something improper or worthy of a scolding.

_Fuck me, I was right!_

Grimmjow laughed aloud, the raucous sound earning him a sharp glare from the other Espada. “Well, you heard the woman!” he guffawed and gestured towards the pot. “Let’s eat and rest up so we can travel at top speed tomorrow.”

They settled into their meal and went to bed early with Hana and Diaemus taking the first turn on sentry duty. The young hybrid boy would easily keep up to them without burning the energy his father and he would have to expend. He crawled into the small tent he shared with Karin. His mate had already tucked herself into their sleeping bag and from the slight movement of the fabric he could tell she was shivering. There was still a large amount of snow left on the ground this far north, and it was only going to get worse the further they traveled. The Kido-powered heater they had brought with them hadn’t had time to warm up the small space yet.

That was fine with him. He had a better plan for heating up the tent in mind.

Removing his uniform, Grimmjow crawled in next to Karin. He spooned up behind her and nuzzled her neck while his hand sought out her bare breasts. Finding one, he gave it several gentle squeezes and let his tongue trace the shell of her ear.

“You’re insatiable,” she sighed.

“Only for you,” he purred, letting the hand that had been squeezing her breast trail southwards towards a more interesting part of her anatomy.

“Do you _really_ think this is an appropriate time to be doing something like this? These tent walls are not soundproof,” she griped at him. Grimmjow pinched her nipple and tugged her closer.

“Shh! Listen,” he whispered.

Both of them stilled their breathing, and after a moment, they heard the sound of Orihime panting loudly. Karin blushed and shook her head before muttering something he didn’t catch. He leaned down and moved his lips close to her ear, trying to keep the whine out of his next words.

“C’mon, it’s been ages since I last got any, and I won’t have the strength tomorrow night. Who knows what shit is going to go down when we hit the Swarm’s base?”

He knew Karin was a tough-ass bitch, but they were about to storm the Swarm’s headquarters, the heart of their stronghold in this Realm. She had sustained injuries in battles before, and she might do so again if they were unlucky. He loved his mate, but he was not going to go another several weeks without sex. The last two weeks of abstinence was enough. He never wanted to go that long without a romp again.

Grimmjow put a bit more pressure into his nuzzling and let his deft fingers tease her nub, working her into arousal. As much as he wanted it, to feel her heated, moist core gripping him, he also paid attention to the emotions he got from her via their Claim, as well as trying to read her body language by feel alone in the darkness of the tent. He wasn’t going to push or force her if she really didn’t want to have sex right now. Maybe he could convince her to partake in some oral pleasure, or at the very least, a hand job.

Sighing softly, Karin finally relaxed in his grip and began to grind her rear against his quickly awaking arousal. There was the bitch he loved, and he growled his approval as she rocked against him, stimulating his cock.

Time, unfortunately, wasn’t really a luxury they had right now, for he was damn well going to need his rest if he was going to be going all out tomorrow. She shifted onto her back and he wasted no time mounting her, settling between her legs and finding her entrance. One of the upsides of having gone sexless for a while was that she was extra tight for him, and he couldn’t hold back the loud moan that escaped him as he entered her. Once settled inside, he paused to kiss her deeply before he started to ride her at a fast and desperate pace, one she tried to match as she thrust her hips up to meet his. It didn’t take long for the little tent to heat up as they ground their bodies together.

The muffled sound of Orihime crying out in release jerked him out of his bliss, and with a wicked grin, he adjusted his angle and thrust into Karin with more desperation than anything he had ever felt. Her weak moans of pleasure turned into loud gasps before she let out a loud howl, her walls clamping tightly around him. He let out a howl of his own as she milked him, his body quaking in release.

“For fuck’s sake! That is so gross!” Hana shouted in outrage from somewhere outside.

“Language!” Karin shouted out, even as her blissful rapture turned into mortification and her eyes darted towards the thin walls of the small tent.

“At least you didn’t have to listen to your mother,” Diaemus lamented, just loudly enough for Grimmjow to hear him over the crackle of the campfire.

They heard an embarrassed-sounding squeak come from the other tent and Grimmjow couldn’t help but roar in laughter, pulling away from Karin as he did so in an effort to spare her ears.

“That’s life! You’ll be doing it soon enough, if the two of you aren‘t already,” Grimmjow shouted back to Hana. Then he had to scramble away before Karin sat up and slapped him. The look on her face promised a world of hurt for what he’d just said and he decided it might be prudent to put some distance between himself and his mate.

Hana sputtered, “That’s just so wrong!” the words mingling perfectly with Diaemus’s “Never in a thousand years!”

“Grimmjow…” he heard Ulquiorra threaten. There was just enough menace in the Fourth’s voice to indicate the other Espada wasn’t particularly thrilled with Grimmjow’s observations either.

That caused him to laugh some more and he couldn’t help but to peek out the tent flap to see Hana sitting next to the campfire, her beet-red face buried in her hands and a look of disgust plastered squarely on Diaemus’s features. Honestly, what was Ulquiorra teaching that boy, or more accurately, NOT teaching him, Grimmjow wondered. At his age, Diaemus should already be scouting out potential mates. Then again, as Ajuga had pointed out to him once, his options were limited if he was looking for an Arrancar female or an un-Claimed Shinigami with any decent amount of reiatsu to her name. The Arrancar had Claimed most of the latter during the War’s aftermath and Grimmjow wouldn’t wish any of Harribel’s girls on the boy.

Somehow they managed to get to sleep, and Karin even let him spoon up against her again, probably because she desired the warmth of his body over having forgiven him for being so crass with the kids.

_Kids_ _…_ _no, they_ _’_ _re not really children any longer, are they?_ he sighed to himself, closing his eyes and letting his mind drift.

All three were old enough to start thinking about breeding soon, and the thought both terrified and delighted him. How many Hollows could claim to have a cub, let alone grand-cubs? He had never heard of a Hollow ever being fortunate enough to live long enough to meet their grand-cubs. Yet, if he and Karin could get their daughter back safety, grand-cubs were a very real possibility. Aizen had involved his Espada in any number of fucked-up things and in Grimmjow’s mind, his creator had stepped over one too many lines in the last few years and deserved to be put down. Still, he’d delivered on a few of the things he’d promised them when they’d taken this Realm for their own. Most Hollows could only dream about having mates, cubs and the kind of comfortable living the Arrancar enjoyed here.

Nevertheless, that wouldn’t save Aizen when the time came to end the threat he posed to Karin, Ajuga and the girl currently on watch.

His dreams that night resolved around Karin, her body aglow in the aftermaths of sex and her belly swollen with his cub. When he woke up several hours later, he had a large problem between his legs as a result. He was to relieve Ulquiorra and Orihime for the third watch. Thankfully, the ‘problem’ was one he managed to get Karin coherent enough to help him deal with, even if it was only with her deft fingers, especially when she did that reiatsu manipulation thing that left his body positively humming. She was just evil enough to do it too, or perhaps she’d forgiven him for being mouthy the previous night. Either way, he was wide-awake and grinning madly when he left the tent.

By the time Grimmjow got back from his patrol, the dark sky had begun to turn pink to the east and Hana and Orihime had cleaned up the camp. Karin was just hoisting her bag onto her back. She probably saw him coming and was just as eager as he was to get to the suspected Swarm base. Ulquiorra and Diaemus were busy conferring with one another in between taking bites of the dry rations that would have to sustain them for what would be a long, gruelling day. As much as he hated the things, practicality won out over his taste buds and he took the packet of ‘food’ from Karin’s outstretched hand.

“We stop only when you three can’t move another inch, or until we reach our destination,” Karin declared, while Hana pulled a small bag from one of her hakama’s pockets and pulled out a thick, white piece of wax. Picking out the larges tree on the edge of the clearing, she reached up and drew it across the rough bark several times, until there was no mistaking the number. Then she carefully tucked it away. With any luck, she would only have to use it one more time.

“We will arrive at our destination first, provided we stay on course,” Ulquiorra assured her, drawing his Zanpakuto as he did so.

“Diaemus and I will be in the lead. He should recognize most of the landmarks, but in case he can’t, I should be able to keep us on track with the map,” Hana piped up, jumping onto Diaemus’ back as he crouched down for her. Grimmjow’s fingers moved to Pantera’s hilt, ready to access the full extent of his strength.

With black and blue waves of power, he and Ulquiorra also entered their respective Resurreccións. Once the dust had settled and imitating Diaemus, both Espada crouched down so their mates could clamber onto their backs. Karin, already an old hat at this thanks to luring Mushi back to town, settled in quickly and comfortably. Orihime took a moment more, trying to find a comfortable position that didn’t interfere with Ulquiorra’s wings. Hana, being smaller, slimmer and far less busty, managed to settle both her person and the pack she carried on Diaemus’s back quickly.

It was tempting to give his mouth free rein and say something snarky to the two youngest members of the search party, but with his mate pressed up against him, he didn’t dare. In fact, his ears flattened against the side of his head thinking about how she would probably punish him by wrenching them. She’d done it before, dragged him down the hall by his ear when he had said something she didn’t like. He let her get away with it because make-up sex usually followed, and he would never jeopardize any possibility of a round between the sheets with her.

_I am so fucking whipped,_ he couldn’t help to think, half-ashamed and half-amused. _If Kurosaki could see me now, the bastard would probably laugh his ass off instead of trying to kill me._

Grimmjow paused and then went over that thought again.

_Okay, maybe he_ _’_ _d want to kill me first and_ then _he_ _’_ _d laugh his ass off,_ he amended.

As planned, they launched into the fastest Sonido they could manage for an extended period. Orihime and Hana both let out yelps of surprise and the former almost pulled her mate off-balance and into a tree as she instinctively strangled him and jerked her weight to the side. In contrast, Karin pressed her body close to his and tried to tuck her cloak around her midsection and legs, to prevent the wind from dragging on them as much as possible. Grimmjow sent a prayer of gratitude out to whoever might be listening that he didn’t have to contend with wings. After several minutes of floundering, Ulquiorra and Orihime finally seemed to find a setup that worked for them. Then they were off, speeding northward and leaving waves of air that caused the treetops below them to bow in their wakes, as if the pines were acknowledging the superiority of the beings moving through the sky above them.

“Do I get a reward for not mocking the shit out of them?” he asked Karin with a grin.

“You shouldn’t need a reward for not acting like a jerk,” she admonished, her lips close to his twitching ear so that he could hear her over the rushing of the air around them.

He frowned and seriously contemplated goading his fellow Espada about his incompetence in carrying his mate, when he felt a pleasurable tingle race over his body. He almost stumbled on his next step and shot a glance over his shoulder to his smug-looking Mate. He returned it after a moment or two, understanding the concept of ‘carrot and stick’ when he saw it. Screw it, he decided, he could indulge in taunting _after_ they rescued his daughter and after laying down a major ass-kicking upon the Swarm. If Grimmjow had his way, there would be nothing for Aizen and the strike party to do but mop up after he was done with the bugs and with the General that had dared to lay a hand upon his child.


	52. A long Trip North: Part 2

Renji had mixed feelings about this expedition. Those feelings, if he was to classify them, were ‘dread’ and ‘relief.’ He hated that the twins were out of his sight. However, the only real threat to the children was the one leading the war party. In fact, the only two entities stronger than Ukitake Jushiro, the twins’ current babysitter, were Aizen and Coyote Starrk. Starrk and Lilynette were hardly a threat to the twins, from what he’d seen of Starrk’s behaviour over the years with Hana-chan, and even if the First had less than honourable intentions, they were part of the attack force too. Barragan’s wrinkled carcass was along for the ride as well, effectively leaving Jushiro as the most powerful being in the city.

Then again, Aizen had left Yammy Llargo behind, but the brute had never shown an interesting in screwing anything other than his former Taichou. He was far too lazy to worry about much else. What worried Renji was that Yammy, with his favourite toy gone, might get restless and go looking for some other means of amusement. The Tenth did have a free Claim spot after all.

For the umpteenth time since they’d left the Seireitei, Renji told himself to relax and that he was letting his overprotectiveness color his thinking. Yammy wouldn’t bother causing trouble when it came to the twins. The bastard was just too interested in Byakuya. He tried to keep his mind free of any images of the two together if he could help it, as he didn’t want to take the time to stop in his tracks and puke.

The flood of relief he’d felt when Aizen added Byakuya to the assault squad and told Yammy to cool his heels at the Kuchiki Estate surprised him. He didn’t want to feel any sort of gratitude towards Aizen, but this was one decision the tyrant had made with which Renji agreed. If anyone needed a break from his or her Master, it was the abused nobleman. Byakuya seemed relieved as well and Renji suspected that was due to more than an extended reprieve from Yammy’s attentions. From what he had learned over the last year, Byakuya had a soft spot for Ajuga. Renji could sympathize; he liked the girl as well and had been horrified when he found out the Swarm had taken her along with Orihime’s son. It might be a massive relief for the tormented man to _finally_ be able to do something for someone he cared about without Yammy’s stinking breath on his shoulders or the idiot’s order preventing him from taking any action.

The farther northward they traveled, the less ‘dead’ Byakuya’s eyes seemed and Abarai Renji was all for anything that would help mend whatever it was that Yammy had broken within him.

The trip was also worrisome in another respect. Getting Ajuga back, if she was still alive, was important. Of equal importance, in Renji’s book, was putting Karin’s plans into action. They’d lured Aizen out into the open, but the only people in on the plot with the attack force were Szayel and the current Third. He hadn’t had a chance to find out if Starrk and Lilynette were on board with the plan. Implementing it now would be out of the question, as circumstance had divided the conspirators. If they wiped out the Swarm’s base now, what would they use to try to get Aizen to leave the Seireitei in the future?

The attack force moved fast but only as fast as the slowest member of their team could move. That dubious title belonged to Tesra. Traveling in the cold air wasn’t particularly helpful either. While the Arrancar had strength on his side, speed wasn’t his strongest suit. Of course, the Espada that gasped and wheezed as he traveled at Renji’s side wasn’t doing so well either. It made Renji feel just a bit superior to know that he had far more endurance and speed than the pink-haired scientist that had originally beaten and enslaved him. If it hadn’t been for the technology Szayel had used against him during their initial duel, he and Ishida probably would have won, because Szayel certainly wouldn’t have won based on strength alone. They had overpowered Szayel and he’d only won because he’d deployed all of the tricks, potions, poisons, and the twisted science the pink sneak had at his disposal. Renji included the plethora of edible assistants in that list of ‘things.’ He supposed that out-manoeuvring an enemy would trump overpowering an enemy on any given day.

_Aren_ _’_ _t you always going on about_ _‘_ _smarts over strength,’ especially with Abisara?_ he reminded himself.

Renji let out a sigh, the sound lost in the air rushing by them as they made their way north. Those events felt like they had taken place both yesterday and an eon ago. Time was an interesting concept. Sometimes years just seemed to flow by, while at other times they slowed to a crawl. The last fifteen years, the ones he could remember at any rate, had moved at a glacier’s pace. His time in the Rukongai had sped by in comparison, as his focus at that point had been enough food to fill his stomach and a safe place to sleep.

“We stop for two hours. Rest,” Aizen commanded from his place at the head of the column of warriors. The redhead could hear the sound of moving water in the distance and figured he’d better take advantage of the opportunity for replenishing what was in their canteens.

Letting out a deep breath, Renji turned his attention towards Nemu and Szayel. The first, unsurprisingly, was perfectly fine. Nemu never seemed to have a hair out of place, no matter what the situation. The second, on the other hand, was soaked in sweat and gasping for breath. It was only mid-afternoon and the day’s travel had winded him. Of course, Szayel wasn’t the only one looking a little ragged around the edges. Most of the assault force showed signs of wear with the exception of Aizen, Starrk, Nemu and Byakuya. Poor Tesra seemed about to fall over, while Nnoitra snorted in contempt at his fraccion. Aizen was not taking it easy on any of them and Renji supposed he should take advantage of the break while it lasted.

He let his bag fall from his shoulders and pulled out his canteen. Walking over to his ‘Master’ and fellow ‘slave,’ he held the container of water out to Szayel. Szayel took it without a word, taking short sips and pouring a little of it onto his hands so he could wash the sweat from his face. Aizen was not going to let them stop to forage for supplies, so what food they had on them or could grab on the move would have to suffice.

“Are you surviving?” Renji asked quietly, giving Szayel a critical once-over. He justified the action by telling himself that if anything happened to the Espada while they were out here in the wilderness, he would have one hell of a time explaining why he still had a Claim surrounding his person when his ‘Master’ had bitten the dust.

“Just peachy,” Szayel snapped and scowled. “This is why I prefer my lab. Running like this… it’s disgusting!” One complaint followed another. “Sleeping in our sweat-soaked clothing…Ugh!” Szayel shivered, looking utterly miserable as he plucked at the front of his uniform. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to get the stench of dried sweat out of material? My hair is a catastrophe!” he whined, attempting to comb his fingers through his snarled pink locks without much success. The wind and sweat hadn’t been kind to it.

The redhead looked heavenward for a moment and then fished around in one of the pockets of his inner kosode.

“Here. Use one of these. It helps a little.”

Renji offered him one of the spare hair ties he kept with him, thanks to Vindula’s habit of losing hers during the course of a typical day. Blinking at it for a few moments, Szayel finally accepted the tie and pulled his shoulder length hair into a crude ponytail secured at the nape of his neck. Szayel didn’t thank him, but Renji hadn’t honestly expected any gratitude. He was content to have, if only temporarily, silenced Szayel’s complaints about his hair.

“If you weren’t such a little bitch, you’d be in better shape,” Nnoitra snorted, sauntering up to their little group. “You should count yourself lucky Aizen-Kami even lets you keep your rank, considering you are nothing more than a human bitch’s pet.”

“That ‘human bitch’ kicked your ass pretty soundly, didn’t she _Quinta_?” Szayel retorted. “I was there when it happened, if memory serves.”

Now that sounded interesting, and as much as he wanted to hear more about it, Renji opted not to goad the Fifth Espada under the current circumstances. Nnoitra hardly seemed winded while both Renji and Szayel were sweating and breathing heavily. That told Renji that Nnoitra was in much better shape than the two of them and that any conflict right now wouldn’t end in their favour. While Nemu didn’t appear fatigued in the slightest, and while Renji knew she was much tougher than she appeared, this was not the time, or place, to pick a fight.

“I hear a river nearby, Szayel-sama. Should I refresh our supplies?” Nemu asked politely, the picture of demure obedience. She paid Nnoitra no heed, brushing his presence off as if he were a passing mosquito, annoying but of little consequence.

“I’ll do it,” Renji volunteered. “I could use a head dip anyway.”

“As could I,” Szayel agreed and turned to his mate. “Prepare a meal for our return and then get some rest.”

“Hai, Szayel-sama,” Nemu replied and bowed to him. Nnoitra, thoroughly ignored, gave up on bullying them and wandered off. Maybe, Renji thought, looks were deceiving and Nnoitra was feeling the brutal pace as much as the rest of them.

He fell in beside Szayel as they walked off towards the river. Judging by the way that a few of the others did as well, Nemu wasn’t the only one to have detected the water. He thought he caught a glimpse of Harribel and Toshiro through the trees, their canteens in hand and Toshiro’s arm around his Mistress’s waist. Yumichika was probably on his way to the river as well, since the former 5th Seat’s disgruntled expression had mirrored Szayel’s after the first day of the journey. From what little he’d seen of Ggio, Barragan seemed intent on keeping his ‘pets’ close by. He hadn’t had a chance to speak with either of them, though the misery on Ggio’s face spoke volumes. Regrettably, he could do little for either of them. Instead, he tried to focus on the things he could affect, namely the Espada walking next to him.

“How are you holding up?” Renji asked worriedly as the forest surrounded them.

“The Claim upon me keeps most of my power ‘in,’ as it were, but it does trickle out on occasion. Regrettably, I will never be at the strength I was before Karin’s blasted brother tried to cave my head in, unless I can find a way to fix my mask,” Szayel answered. His frank tone surprised Renji.

The trip had served to show the other Espada just how weak Szayel had become since his run in with Ichigo. While most of the Espada travelling with them had little motivation to ‘take out the competition’ by turning on Szayel, the same could not be said of the Numeros back in the city. Word of Szayel’s lack of strength could and would spread among the lower ranks. It was only a matter of time. Renji wasn’t particularly worried about Szayel, as long as remained hidden within the Science and Research Division. However, someone might get it through their thick skulls to assault Szayel via the twins. Having to worry about Aizen’s twisted interest in the scientist was bad enough but now Renji had to consider every Numeros a danger.

He had to stop himself there and forcibly refocus his thoughts. _One thing at a time,_ he thought. _You can only deal with so much and getting Ajuga back comes first. The twins are in good hands, though Ukitake-Taichou has probably fed them too many sweets._

It didn’t take them long to find the river, ice crusting its banks and any rock that stuck out of the water. Renji unlatched the fastener on the collapsible bucket he’d pulled from his pack, and made the slippery and dangerous trek to the water’s edge, cursing the entire way there and back. He swore he could feel the cold from the water travel from the sides of the bucket to the handle, freezing his fingers. Once refilled, the canteens became ice packs. He and Nemu would have to use Kido to warm them enough to melt the drinking water within them. With Renji’s luck and his lack of Kido talent, he’d probably blow up the container instead.

Obtaining wash water, conversely, was a much easier task.

He set the now-full bucket down and took a step back. With practiced ease, Szayel fired up a miniscule Cero that barely qualified as a burst of energy and used it to warm the water. Squatting down, they proceeded to wipe as much sweat and dirt from their upper bodies as they could and dry off before the warm water turned cold and chilled their bare skin.

As always, the sight of the scars that decorated Szayel’s body unnerved him to no end. It also reminded him of what he and his so-called ‘Master’ were in the middle of plotting, if they could just get a few lucky breaks.

“You know, there was a time I would have cheered, learning of the shit Aizen does to you.”

Renji wasn’t entirely sure where that had come from and the Espada crouching on the other side of the bucket paused in his ablutions to give him a startled look from behind his cracked glasses. Resting his hands on his knees, the Shinigami frowned down into the water and reached for the towel.

“What changed your mind in the end?” Szayel asked.

“Vindula-chan,” he answered after a few minutes, and then added “and Abisara-kun. That and no one deserves the sick shit Aizen does. I saw a lot of unpleasant things growing up, and while I won’t ever admit what you did to me was right, at least you’re less of a dick on a daily basis than that freak Kurotsuchi. I think the Division’s staff likes you better too. You’re not dissecting any of them just because you can.”

“No, I find that if I leave them alone, the less competent ones tend to weed themselves out, one way or another. It’s less work for me if I let nature take its course.”

As he washed, the former Fukutaichou thought back to an incident last autumn involving the untimely demise of a particularly haughty, fresh-from-the-Academy recruit. Whatever he’d done had involved a compound that ate its way through three floors of the Division, taking out a storeroom, another laboratory and part of the staff break room. The casualties included the break room vending machine. If the dead Shinigami who perpetrated the experiment-gone-awry hadn’t died from exposure to the compound, the junk food addicted Science and Research Division staff would have killed him themselves.

Szayel paused and regarded Renji through his dripping pink bangs.

“You are a perpetual pain in my ass, an unthinking, mouthy git that reacts before he can see or understand the bigger picture. However, my children adore you, you’ve protected them admirably and for that, I am grateful. I also appreciate that you went to find Starrk and Karin-sama that night. I might still be in that pit if you hadn’t complained to the First.”

Lifting his head, Renji held out the towel he’d used to dry himself. Szayel eyed it, shivered, and plucked it from his fingers. He proceeded to rub it vigorously over the vicious kanji. It would take more than a length of terrycloth to remove those, Renji thought to himself, but that didn’t stop Szayel from trying.

“I’m not looking forward to what I’m going to have to do to upon our return. I fear Aizen has chosen a punishment more severe than a simple flogging. Let’s pray that this mission is a success and that in his good mood, he forgets your outburst. The twins aren’t the only ones that need you whole and functioning in the near future.”

“Has that ever worked before?”

It hadn’t slipped his mind that when and if he returned to the Seireitei, he had a punishment waiting for him, but other things had concerned him more. Szayel’s expression didn’t give him any confidence on that front.

“I wouldn’t count on it. I’ll try to let Karin-sama know, so she can try to head off any alterations that might make it harder for you to protect my children. Neither can we count on another intervention from the First on my pack’s behalf. Technically, I’m supposed to discipline you and I find I’ve little enthusiasm for doing so… not when we’re in agreement about the twins’ welfare.”

Szayel’s voice dropped even lower in volume and he gave Renji a look laced with regret and reluctance.

“If it comes to it, your first action will be to flee the Seireitei with my children with the device. I...”

“That might blow the entire thing!” Renji countered in an angry whisper. “Whatever he does to me, the plan comes first… and what about you? What will happen when Aizen finds out you can’t ‘track’ me with a Claim?”

“Idiot… I was the one who silenced Yammy’s pet, on the threat of having the Tenth throw a temper tantrum in my Division. Did it not cross that walnut-sized brain of yours that Aizen might have something similar in mind for you! Did it ever occur to you that there are other ways disciplining someone?”

That took Renji aback.

“What do you mean?” he pressed. Szayel’s answer was barely audible, a harsh whisper delivered in an exasperated manner as he gave his face a final rinse.

“Aizen might decide that my control over you is lacking and hand you over to someone like that dolt Yammy instead! I’m a ‘pet’ now and would have no say over such a thing! I’ll not allow that! If I say so, you _will_ take Abisara and Vindula and leave Soul Society. I’m sure that strumpet of yours will find you quickly enough. Karin, Grimmjow and I will think of an explanation for your defection. This,” and here Szayel-sama reached up and touched the crack in his glasses, “will serve as an excuse if we need a cover story. Even if I did hold your Claim, there would be little I could do to prevent you breaking free of it at this point.”

He could only stare at the Espada on the other side of the bucket at both the admission of weakness and the fact Szayel sounded so certain about such a move. It meant Szayel was entirely serious about getting his son and daughter to safety and sending their caregiver with them, even if they had to jump the gun a bit with regard to getting non-combatants out earlier than planned.

Renji let out a long breath, the white cloud streaming out into the icy air. As day turned into night, it was only going to get colder and he was glad that the three of them were sharing a tent during the few, longer periods of rest Aizen allowed them. The shared body heat ensured that no one froze to death in his or her sleep, and it silenced Szayel’s complaints after the first night. Reaching out he placed one hand on Szayel’s bare shoulder and shook it gently.

“You’re a narcissistic, fashion-obsessed braggart, but you’re much better than Nemu-chan’s creator, and you kept your word to me about burying Ishida Uryuu. You’re a decent father as well, for all your faults. It’s hard to hate someone who has to look at this,” and here Renji indicated the marks carved into Szayel’s skin, “every morning. Whatever you did back then, you’ve paid for it in full. We’ll figure this out when we get back.”

“Huh. You two have certainly matured.”

Both men jumped at the sly, masculine voice that abruptly joined their conversation. Renji was on his feet and had Zabimaru half-pulled from his sheath before his darting eyes focused on the black, innocent-looking house cat sitting calmly on a large boulder. Its yellow eyes regarded them with undisguised humour at having snuck up on them so easily and he saw its dark tail curl around its body.

“Yoruichi-san!” Renji exclaimed, while the Espada standing next to him gaped in open astonishment at the sight of a talking animal. He reached over to place a hand on Szayel’s wrist before the Hollow could fully pull his own Zanpakuto free. “What are you doing way out here?” he asked the cat, flabbergasted that she had taken such a risk. He knew she was sneaky, but pursuing Aizen’s attack force while having a price on her head was in a category of insanity all its own.

“Lower your voice, Abarai,” she hissed, her eyes narrowing. “I was going to ask you two the same thing. What has Aizen so worked up that he’s willing to leave the city and take his most powerful weapons with him? He hasn’t set foot outside of it since the War ended.”

Szayel and Renji looked at one another and then back down at Yoruichi.

“We found the Swarm’s base,” Renji told her. “Aizen plans to destroy it. We’re also going to rescue Ajuga. One of the Swarm’s Generals took her almost two weeks ago and we believe they’re holding her hostage somewhere within.”

“Ajuga? She’s Karin and Grimmjow’s daughter, right?”

The sardonic drawl in Yoruichi’s voice was instantly gone, replaced by worry. Renji thought he could detect a touch of outright fear as well.

“Yes,” Szayel said, finally letting go of Fornicaras. His stance relaxed, but his eyes kept wandering to spots up and down the river, mindful of the fact that anyone might walk in on their conversation. “We have been waiting to hear from you, or rather, we’ve been waiting for you to contact Karin-sama.”

Yoruichi’s furry ears swivelled towards Szayel as she gave the Arrancar her full attention. Renji hoped the Espada wouldn’t drag out the explanation. Thankfully, the scientist kept it simple.

“Karin-sama has a plan and an agreement with the Swarm, to try and take Aizen down. We just need to know if your group is on board and when, or if, you can assist.”

“She does?” Yoruichi sounded surprised. “What sort of plan are we talking about here?”

“The Swarm is aware of the Karin-sama and Ajuga’s lineage, and with Ajuga in their grasp we fear they might put the child on the Spirit King’s Throne. If they do that…” Szayel broke off and shivered. Yoruichi apparently understood the gravity of the situation, because she hissed and flattened her ears against her head, her tail moving back and forth in displeasure.

“I see. Yes, it’s of utmost importance you retrieve her. In fact, if I were you, it would be my top priority. This plan…?”

Szayel’s mouth thinned out. He reached up, adjusted his glasses and peered down at the Shinigami in cat’s clothing while tapping his lower lip with one finger.

“…will require the assistance of those who remain free. Will you help us?”

“That depends on a lot of things. I’ll need to hear it before I can tell you whether I think it’s something we, or you, can pull off. I won’t waste time or my people’s lives on ‘wishful thinking.’ You’re going to have to tell me everything.”

The answer didn’t exactly surprise Renji. His time at Urahara’s place had taught him that Yoruichi was someone who would give an unvarnished opinion on a subject or plan whether one asked for input or not. For his part, there were things he desperately wanted to ask her, but most of those pertained to Nel and were deeply personal. He was just tired enough to not want to have to put up with Szayel’s catty comments about his relationship with the former Third. Instead, he decided on a slightly safer subject.

“Hey, out of curiosity, does Ichigo know he’s an uncle?”

“No,” Yoruichi replied quickly and the cat yawned, her pink tongue rolling as her jaws stretched, revealing a set of sharp, white fangs. “If Ichigo knew, he’d probably do something very rash, destructive, and mostly counter-productive to our cause. He would assume that Grimmjow had raped Karin, and continued to do so, even though Yuzu-chan has done her best to try to convince him that his sister’s relationship with the Espada is consensual. Keeping the secret has been difficult, especially with Hiyori’s loud mouth, but we have managed to keep him in the dark. It’s for the best, I’m afraid.”

In her current form, the noblewoman had no eyebrows, but Renji could imagine her frown as she asked her next question.

“Do you really believe the Swarm will try to place Ajuga on the Throne? Where, exactly, is Karin now?”

Yoruichi’s guttural, slightly menacing tone told Renji he’d better be fast with the answers.

“She went ahead with Grimmjow, Ulquiorra, Orihime, Diaemus and Hana,” he replied, before Szayel could open his mouth. “You do know that Diaemus is Orihime and Ulquiorra’s son right?”

“Yes, we know.” Yoruichi waved a paw at them. “And before you ask, no, Ichigo doesn’t know the boy exists either, for the same reasons we kept him ignorant of his niece. He was upset enough to find out the Fourth Espada had Claimed Orihime.”

“Were you aware that Tatsuki is pregnant?”

Renji added that and watched Yoruichi’s eyes get a fraction wider.

“That… I did not know. Oh dear, I see that there’s quite a lot we’ll be have to refrain from telling Ichigo. To answer your other, previous question, I had just arrived on this side of the Dangai when I saw the lot of you leave the city through the Northern Gate. I decided to follow, rather than ignore the opportunity. It is not as easy to sneak in and out of Soul Society as you might assume. I don’t waste what little time I can arrange here on trivial matters and I ran into trouble the last time I made the trip.”

The black cat hunkered down on the rock and Renji had the feeling Yoruichi was trying to digest the news about Tatsuki. “Who else is pregnant?” she asked hesitantly.

“Tatsuki Lindocruz… I guess she’s going by her mate’s name now… and Matsumoto Rangiku for sure. Tia Harribel, the Third Espada, is also pregnant…”

“…and a fascinating case study that is, I have to say!” Szayel added quickly, before Renji resumed speaking, casting an irritated look in the scientist’s direction.

“Look, there are a lot of women, both Shinigami and Arrancar, who are with child now. Szayel here could explain the reasons behind it better than I can. He’s also got the list of names memorized...”

“Your former 3rd Seat, if I read her files correctly, is due within the month.”

Renji made a strangling noise in his throat and looked back at scientist, shocked at not only the blunt way Szayel had made the announcement, but also the way his words almost sounded like a challenge. The corners of Szayel’s mouth curled up for the first time since the trip north began. Renji wanted to smack him, but didn’t dare risk doing so out in the open.

“Dammit, Szayel!” he said between clenched teeth. The scientist flipped a lock of hair out of his eyes and waved a dismissive hand at him. Szayel chose to keep his eyes on Yoruichi, giving her a significant look.

“It’s true, Abarai. I’d give her two weeks, maybe two-and-a-half until she gives birth. Thankfully, she seems quite healthy now that she isn’t being starved.”

When the redhead looked back at Yoruichi, she’d bowed her head and her tail drooped. With her golden eyes squarely on the river, her posture seemed to be that of someone carrying a great deal of guilt. While her deep, gritty voice was steady when she spoke, pain and regret laced it as well.

“I see… so it’s too late. I knew the Second had Claimed her and Ayasegawa-san, but I’d hoped that I could find a way to get her out before anything like this happened. The Kyoraku Estate is large, but it’s too well guarded and his Resurrección is nothing to underestimate. He’s also too observant. We couldn’t take the chance that Barragan would be able to use his Claim to track her, and us down if we managed to get her to the Living World.”

Szayel’s smirk grew just a little wider as he walked towards the rock, hunkering down before the cat and going eye-to-eye with her.

“Then isn’t it fortunate that Barragan Louisenbairn never truly held her Claim in the first place? I believe that you’ll be quite interested to hear what I have to say regarding the woman in question. Consider this an advanced payment for your group’s help in bringing Aizen down. Are you interested now, Shihoin Yoruichi?”

Yoruichi, stunned by the revelation, positively glowered at Szayel for trying to force her hand. Her tail angrily moving back and forth, but when she didn’t up and disappear on them, Renji knew that Szayel had won some sort of ‘victory’.

“I want to know what sort of ‘arrangement’ Karin made with the Swarm regarding Aizen. Then, you’ll tell me everything you can about my Bee, or I will personally sic Zaraki Kenpachi on you.”

The smirk on the scientist’s face tripled in size. Renji wondered if he’d be smiling quite so much if he understood the kind of mayhem the former Taichou was capable of inflicting.

“So good to have you on board, Madame. I look forward to working with you and yours.”

Renji fished around for the upper half of his uniform. He lacked Szayel’s Hierro and the cold was beginning to get to him. He tossed what little water remained in the bucket out and pushed against the latch on the side. The bottom folded upwards into a flat disc, perfect for storing in the pack he’d left back with Nemu.

“You certainly have a way of making your case with women,” Renji murmured and unconsciously rubbed the finally healed bite mark on his shoulder. If memory served, Harribel hadn’t seemed very pleased with Szayel on the day he’d recruited her either. He had a feeling she’d taken out a little frustration on his person, since biting Szayel had been out of the question.

The cat twitched her whiskers as she watched Szayel make a face at his wrinkled, stained uniform and pull it over his shoulders. If she thought anything of the scars that littered his chest and back, she kept it to herself.

“We need to get back to camp or we will be missed,” Szayel declared, and then asked Yoruichi, “How comfortable are you with sitting draped across Abarai’s shoulders? If he keeps the hood of his winter cloak up, no one should see you.”

Yoruichi didn’t appear to like the idea very much, but after a moment of thinking about it, the cat heaved a sigh and padded over to him.

“I could curl up in the hood,” she suggested, making the leap up to Renji’s shoulders and tunnelling beneath his long ponytail and curling up around his neck. The garment was so bulky that the oversized hood hid the extra mass her feline body added to his frame. He pulled the hood up and hoped that any observers would assume the extra volume was the result of him tucking his overabundant hair out of the way. He’d have to draw the tie around the hood a little tighter in order to keep it in place while they travelled, but at least she’d be able to breathe by poking her nose out beneath his ear for some fresh air.

“How’s it look?” he asked, worried that someone might suspect he had a hitchhiker aboard.

Szayel’s mouth thinned as he walked around his ‘pet,’ trying to find any flaws in Renji’s appearance. Finally, he shrugged and hoisted his canteen and Nemu’s over one shoulder, as well as his cloak. Szayel handed Renji his frozen canteen and the towel, looking more nervous as the minutes ticked by.

“Fine. You look as if you’re freezing, just like the rest of us. Let’s return to camp. I hope your hearing is good, Yoruichi-san, because I dare not speak too loudly,” Szayel warned. “If the wrong ears were to catch wind of our mutiny, nothing will save our hides from Aizen’s wrath.”

“My hearing is impeccable,” she sniffed, her voice muffled beneath the cloak’s heavy fabric. Renji finally gave in and asked Yoruichi something under his breath.

“Before we get going, how is Nel-chan? Is she all right? I…”

He was aware that he sounded needy and the rushed questions sounded like the frantic pleadings of some lovesick puppy, but this was the first chance he’d had to ask about his Mate’s welfare. For a few seconds, he heard nothing but the cat’s breathing in the confined space of the lined hood. The warm weight against his shoulders shifted and her tail flicked his ear. At the same time, he swore he felt four sets of claws sink into his uniform’s collar, pricking his skin as Yoruichi made sure she wasn’t going slide off him when he moved.

For some strange reason, he felt she’d done so deliberately.

Then from the depths of the hood, he heard her give a chuckle that seemed surprisingly short on humour, before she reassured him that, considering the tight quarters and harsh conditions the Escapees lived under, his mate was ‘doing just fine’. Szayel made a show of clearing his throat and they began the walk back to the main encampment, Szayel all but muttering the plan under his breath.

Renji hoped she was telling the truth. With any luck, Karin’s plan would work and he wouldn’t have to wait six excruciatingly long months to see her again. The prospect of spending more than a mere hour a year with her was more than enough incentive for Renji to want to bury Zabimaru in Aizen’s chest at the first opportunity. In his opinion, the opportunity couldn’t come soon enough.


	53. Disturbance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Home safe and sound after needing to travel for a Dr. Appt. Sorry for the delay in posting.

It was uncanny how much the Swarm seemed to value her existence. The bugs had moved her from the frigid cell into a much warmer room, one that also doubled as her keeper’s living quarters. To her disgust, that person turned out to be ‘Zee.’ He was the only one who could speak her language without the buzzing accent that made the words difficult to understand. They’d finally started feeding her _real_ food, raw meat she’d identified as venison once she’d sank her fangs in it. With regular meals, she slowly began to heal and to regain her strength. The wound in her neck closed after three or four feedings, thanks to the quick healing ability she’d inherited from her father. Diaemus had done a number on her, an indication as to just how hungry her friend had been when she’d agreed to ‘donate’ her blood and reiatsu as a means of giving him enough energy to escape. The Swarm had even tended to her broken arm and the bones were knitting together properly, but she didn’t want to rely on that arm for anything serious just yet.

Then again, it wasn’t as if she could go very far. Her jailers had chained her ankles together and once her neck healed, they’d placed a fitted metal collar around it. The collar had an attached chain that locked to another loop of metal jutting out from the wall. She had just enough slack to keep from choking if she sat up and forward to eat, but not enough to let her roam the room at will. They’d at least given her a comfortable bed, woven from some kind of tough, silky-feeling threads, but the bed, the food, the occasional bathroom break and the medical treatment were the only kindnesses.

Right now, the only things she could really manage were eating, resting, and attempting to glean information from her captors, which wasn’t much. What she did know was that Diaemus had pulled off the perfect vanishing act, if Zee’s anger and frustration was anything to go by. She hoped her friend had made it back by now but if not, at least he wasn’t in Zee’s clutches. Speaking of the devil, Zee walked through the doorway, her ‘meal’ in hand. She tried to force herself to sit up, but Zee quickly moved to her side and rested a hand on her shoulder, holding her down.

“You are not to move yet,” he ordered firmly.

“Fuck you,” she spat rebelliously, but reluctantly lay back down, not because she couldn’t hold herself up or was obeying him, but so she wouldn’t reveal how much strength had returned to her already. Of course, there wasn’t much strength to conceal. She was still terribly weak, but with a few more deer in her belly, she might be able to start thinking about a way to sneak out of this place. A good Bala, aimed at the iron loop holding her chain would be a great start...

_Diaemus really let me have it. Who knew the winged rat, with all his going on about being ‘reserved’ and ‘proper,’ had such a voracious appetite?_ she marvelled, knowing that she needed to wait on doing something so bold as making a break for it until she could replace all of the blood and the energy that Diaemus had taken from her.

The insult had no effect on Zee, possibly because the words meant nothing to him. She didn’t think that the Swarm engaged in sex as a recreational pastime. They probably didn’t curse at one another either, given their hive-mind, though they might have some sort of nasty words set aside for those who _weren’t_ members of the Swarm. However, she’d bet her next breakfast that the ‘words’ Zee had snarled when they had stormed in to find her bleeding out and twitching on the floor of her old cell involved _some_ kind of profanity.

“Eat,” he ordered her sternly, holding out two large, still-bloody chunks of meat towards her. It was difficult to keep her mouth from watering as the metallic smell of fresh blood filled the air in the room.

Ajuga eyed them and gave them a sniff, but detected no signs of tampering. Reluctantly, she took one chunk from him, the meal staining her lips and hands as she tore into it. It was hard not to gobble it down too quickly. All she was these days was ‘hungry.’ Her mother would have a fit if she saw her eating like this; Karin, being human, preferred her meat cooked and served on a proper plate, with condiments and side dishes that included disgusting things, like vegetables. Then again, she’d seen her mother’s insignificant canines and less-than-razor-sharp teeth. Burnt, heat-processed flesh was probably the only way her mother could enjoy a good steak.

Ajuga preferred her meat raw, if not still moving, and in her current blood-depleted condition, the more raw meat she ate, the better. The venison was so fresh it was still almost body-temperature, which was a relief. The blood loss had chilled her and the growing warmth in her belly as she gulped down what had recently been a deer helped with that. Now if only there was something she could do to mend her reiatsu levels. Unfortunately, even if she did start eating Swarm soldiers, she’d gain less reiatsu from devouring them than she would if she ate the pitiful Plus souls in the Rukongai.

“Why are you holding me here?” she asked after she finished, licking her fingers of every last drop of red stuff and seeking out any bits of meat that might be caught between her teeth. Nothing was going to waste if she could help it.

She hadn’t asked Zee the reasons behind her capture until now. That was partly due to her weakened condition and partly because she didn’t really expect him to answer. Her first guesses involved studies and experimentation, which she abandoned the longer she remained in this room. If they’d really wanted to dissect her, or even examine her, they’d have done so long before now. She’d been around Szayel enough to know scientific curiosity when she saw it and it was entirely absent in her captors.

“We will use you to rebalance the Realms, since your mother seems to be incapable of doing so,” Zee replied sourly, though his reply made no sense. The fact he’d said anything at all startled her.

She was about to ask him for clarification on just _how_ he expected her to do something that not even Szayel or Aizen could manage, but to her surprise Zee continued to talk, so she bit her tongue and hoped he would be dumb enough to monologue about his ‘evil plans.’ The villain in the silly book she’d seen lying about in the Science Division’s lobby one day and picked up to read had done that. Maybe she’d get lucky and Zee would do something equally dumb.

“Tomorrow, we will go to the Palace and you will sit on the chair and say my name. After that, the rift will reseal and the Realms will begin to balance,” he declared.

Ajuga blinked at him, utterly confused as to what he’d just said. Was he serious? How would her sitting on some chair and saying his name restore the messed-up Realms? Was the Swarm crazier than she realized? If it was that easy, then why hadn’t Aizen done it already? Zee might as well have hopped up and down on one foot and rubbed his head and his belly with his hands for all the sense such a statement made.

“Rest,” Zee told her, turning and striding towards the door.

“Wait,” she called out after him, to no avail.

Her attempt to go after him came to an uncomfortably halt, thanks to the collar. She spat some vivid curses that would have made her father proud and caused her mother tan her hide with a reiatsu-infused, spike-encrusted stick had she heard them. Seething in frustration, Ajuga sat back and tried to keep her temper under control. Ajuga could have broken through the chain with the claws attached to the arm Zee hadn’t damaged, but she was still in no condition to escape and she didn’t want to tip her hand. In addition, the General had most likely locked the door and that might prove a bigger obstacle. Spitting and hissing like a pissed housecat, she crawled back into the silky nest and tried to use the time to recoup more of her lost strength. At least the nest was warm and she had a stomach full of meat to digest. As worn out as she was, it didn’t take long for slumber to find her.

When Karin initially pictured the outpost the Swarm might build for itself here, she’d envisioned something more like a massive underground complex dug by a colony of ants, or maybe a termite mound. She’d been right about the subterranean portion, but she’d certainly missed the mark on the rest of the complex that rose from the center of the island, in the middle of the frozen lake on Hana’s map. Instead, the scouting party discovered what looked like an old-fashioned beehive, entirely carved from ice and with plenty of exits and entrances at various levels. The impressive structure sparkled when the light hit it, reminding Karin a little of the great, glass dome enclosing the Science and Research Division back in the Seireitei. It wasn’t quite as tall as that glittering, multifaceted creation, but those taking it in from a hidden spot near the edge of the lake were impressed. There was also more than a little grudging respect for the bugs themselves, as well as their willingness to build with ice. Normal insects would have died from the frigid temperatures long before now.

Upon seeing it, they’d immediately dubbed the Swarm’s base ‘The Hive,’ based on its outward appearance and the handful of Locusts that buzzed in and out of the various entrance and exit holes like honeybees. They would leave and return with freshly cut timber. Hana guessed that, from the amount of wood gathered, it constituted part, if not all, of the Swarm’s food source.

The logging was what tipped them off. They knew they were close yesterday, when they’d stumbled across a great swath of clear-cut pine trees. The Swarm had stripped the forests of acres and acres of timber, taking all but the smallest of stray branches. They’d even made off with the deadfall and half-rotted dead trees. Grimmjow and Ulquiorra ordered everyone to hide along the rocks lining a ridge overlooking the deforestation and observed a horde of Locusts chewing the trees near the base of each trunk. The insects would take the logs, one bug on each end, and carry them off over the horizon. In this manner, they’d zeroed in on the Hive’s location, aided by Hana’s map.

Getting there, however, had been trickier. They had speed on their side, but thanks to fewer stands of uncut trees, it was harder to stay undetected as they surreptitiously followed a Locust and its burden. Thankfully, Szayel’s map proved useful when a lack of cover forced them to fall behind by skirting around the edges of already-cut clearings.

It was a testament to the map’s accuracy when they finally caught their first glimpse of the Hive. In line with Hana’s calculations, the Swarm had built their strategic fortification right where Hana’s calculations said it would be. This far to the north, winter had not yet relinquished its grasp on the land, and the scouting party knew that they would have to wait until the following evening to think about crossing that wide-open expanse if they wanted to keep their presence a secret.

The next step involved finding a secluded spot where they could recover from the gruelling pace of their journey. The tangled roots of a colossal fallen tree proved an excellent system of support for the camouflage–patterned tarps. As the tree had fallen in a northerly direction, its roots sheltered the ground beneath them from encroaching snowdrifts and spared them the task of digging out a bare patch to set up their encampment. Stringing those out and staking them to the forest floor gave the little party a spot to let the men rest and recover from the extended use of their Resurrección forms. Karin left Orihime and Hana to guard their camp and made her way to a spot overlooking the lake and the Hive. Finding an out-of-the-way position amid what she guessed were juniper shrubs from the smell of the branches and the pale blue berries, she lay down on her belly. Taking a deep breath, she slipped into Jinzen, and then focused on the ice dome.

She easily caught sight of all of the little energy signatures that belonged to the Locusts. Seeing them move through the tunnels of the Hive reminded her of the medical videos that showed blood moving through a person’s arteries and veins, or perhaps traffic patterns moving through a city’s streets, as seen from above. The signatures moved in one direction only, then stopped to let another batch of energy signatures cross their path. The reiatsu points that identified Locusts seemed to be near the surface. The signatures belonging to the much-larger Beetles were deeper within the base. She thought that might be due to a desire to stay close to whatever heat source they used. In fact, the deeper she looked, the more ‘life’ she found.

In a way, it was really was like looking at a forest. Plants had their own energy signatures. Individually, each bit of reiatsu was weak, almost negligible. However, when one took in the energy of an entire forest, the signatures combined to create a ’haze’. The Swarm’s wholesale signature was the same; the deeper down she gazed and the more insects she looked at, the thicker the haze grew, until only the strongest signatures stood out.

She recognized the Scarabs’ reiatsu thanks to spending so much time with Mushi. Thinking of the Scarab in its pen, she hoped someone remembered to feed her while they were gone, and that Mushi wasn’t giving those tending to her any problems. Karin reminded herself that Abisara was conscientious enough to make sure someone was on the job and Jushiro was too softhearted to let the insect starve.

Here and there, she could see the small-but-powerful signatures that she guessed belonged to the Generals. Like the sharp reflections of sunlight on water, they stood out against their weaker kin. Thanks to the two encounters she’d had with Zee, Karin managed to pick out the General’s reiatsu relatively quickly. It was a relief to know that he blatantly outshone the others. The last thing they needed was more than one General like the one who had stolen her daughter.

Once she identified Zee, it didn’t take long to locate the one signature she really wanted. She almost sobbed with relief when her eyes picked out Ajuga’s reiatsu. Her child’s energy levels were low, but steady. She let herself linger over her daughter’s form for some time before jerking her thoughts back to the task.

Using the Locusts’ movements as an indicator for the locations of tunnels and chambers, she mentally mapped the Hive’s layout. She also plotted what she hoped would be the fastest way to get to wherever they were holding Ajuga. The increased haziness in the deeper parts of the Swarm’s outpost, as well as the convoluted nature of the tunnels made finding a direct path difficult. In fact, the haze became as thick as rice gruel the lower she got, until it seemed like one solid sheet of energy. Then she paused and took a much closer look. Karin let her ‘sight’ drift towards the very bottom of the complex before she realized that she _wasn’t_ looking at a vast multitude of congregating insects.

Instead, she swallowed the gasp as the single, massive signature _moved_.

What lay below was one immense entity. If she squinted, she could pick out the edges of its body when it shifted.

_Whatever that is, it’s at least as big as a bloody cargo ship!_ she marvelled, before a number of different explanations for a bug that big paraded through her head.

Could the thing that lay curled in the bowels of the Swarm’s Hive be the leader of the Swarm? Maybe this creature served to pump needed oxygen into the dome to keep the Swarm comfortably living here or it could be some kind of relay bug, sending and receiving messages and reports. She hadn’t ruled out the thing as a heat source. She wished Szayel were here, mostly because he might have a better idea of what function this new life form might have, based on its size and its location within the Hive. He was the Seireitei’s expert in all things pertaining to the Swarm and that wasn’t saying much, considering how little they truly knew about the creatures.

She’d gathered as much information as her hiding place would allow as she didn’t want to tarry any longer. Her jacket had barely kept her from contracting frostbite after lying on the ground for so long. Retreating to their makeshift shelter, she greeted Hana and Orihime before squirming her way into the sleeping bag where Grimmjow lay snoring until her chilled flesh met his.

“Damn girl, what were you doing, rolling in the snow?” he complained as his eyes shot open. One of his arms snaked its way around her waist. From the rustling outside of the bag, his sudden yelp had roused Ulquiorra and Diaemus.

“She’s alive. Kami, she’s weak, but she’s alive,” Karin announced, fighting back tears of joy.

Hana and Orihime cheered, mindful not to make too much noise while doing so. Karin heard a muffled sigh of relief from one sleeping bag and guessed it was Diaemus. A matching ‘hmm’ from Ulquiorra came from the other bag. Grimmjow pulled Karin flush against him, nuzzling her neck. She felt him relax, as some of the tension he’d held in his frame for the last several days finally drained away. The fear that Ajuga had succumbed to the combined injuries inflicted by the General and those created by Diaemus when he’d fed from her evaporated, but there was the rest of what she’d seen and she wasn’t sure what to make of it.

“I scanned the Swarm’s base, from top to bottom. There’s something at the very lowest levels, something enormous. It’s bigger than Szayel’s entire Division,” she reported. Hana and Orihime looked at one another, concern clouding both women’s features.

“Should we wait for the rest?” Hana suggested, sounding somewhat reluctant to take on anything that large without help.

“Waiting would be prudent,” Ulquiorra replied, his voice drifting up from his sleeping bag. “Clearly, Ajuga is in no danger and it would be foolish to engage a foe that large with our current roster. We stand a better chance of success if we postpone an all-out attack until reinforcements arrive.”

Hana nodded and looked to Karin again.

“Can you see the others?”

Sighing, Karin nestled more comfortably against her mate’s warmth and slipped into Jinzen once more. Doing so was easier now that she knew her daughter was safe. After several minutes of concentration, she sighed and shook her head. The warriors following them were still well out of her range. She also privately marvelled at how far their little scouting party had come in such a short amount of time.

“Check again in a few hours,” Ulquiorra suggested sleepily. “For now, we should remain concealed, learn what we can of their patrols and recover from our rush.”

Karin let herself slip off into slumber, only to wake a few hours later. After eating a lunch of cold rations, she once more sought out the force that should have been behind them, again with no luck. Grimmjow and Ulquiorra disappeared into the forest to observe what they could of the Swarm’s movements and patrols, while Hana and Diaemus went hunting for fresh meat. That left Karin with Orihime, who sat staring pensively at the coals of their small fire.

“Do you think it will take long for the others to catch up?” the other woman asked, breaking the silence.

“I doubt it. They were going to leave the next morning. We pushed hard to get here, though. They will probably catch up to us tomorrow night or sometime during the next day. It depends on whom Aizen is bringing with him. They can only travel as fast as their slowest warrior,” she pointed out, “or their slowest piece of equipment.”

“Of course,” Orihime agreed, looking off towards the south. “Who do you think he will bring?”

“I don’t know, probably most of the Espada and Taichou-class Shinigami. The rank and file Shinigami wouldn’t be able to keep up with someone like Starrk or Nnoitra. If it were up to me, I’d have Jushiro or Unohana stay behind to run things. Jushiro’s tuberculosis is much better now, thanks to the new medicine he‘s on and the damage to his lungs you managed to heal, but he’s still risks a flare-up if he exerts himself too much,” Karin answered, trying hard not to sound gloomy.

_The timing of all of this stinks!_ she seethed inwardly. Aizen was finally out of the city, but there was no way she could communicate with Yoruichi and the Escapees in the next day. She also didn’t think that reasoning with Zee would be possible at this point. The insectoid bastard had been the one to screw up a perfectly good beginning to a coup against Aizen with his opportunistic abduction of Ajuga and she no longer felt she could trust him as far as keeping his word. Then again, if Aizen’s approaching force annihilated the Swarm’s base and the bugs within, there might not be any insects left with which they could coordinate an attack. The conspirators would have to find some other way of engineering an assassination and she wasn’t fool enough to think they had an unlimited amount of time to do it.

Then again, if she could get Zee’s attention, she could warn him of the approaching force. After all, they’d have Aizen right there, where they could get to the usurper. She did promise, after all, that if they killed the bastard she would sit on the Spirit King’s Throne and allow her presence to start stabilizing the Realms. She had no idea how the process worked, but she was sure she could figure something out. Maybe there was an operating manual. Surely, the Soul King’s Palace and the Royal Realm had an archive of such things.

If it didn’t… well, she’d just have to wing it.

She’d also have to convince Ulquiorra to go in and get Ajuga out to pull it off. She also, somewhat selfishly, relished giving Zee a piece of her mind and her fist for daring to go behind her back and taking her daughter.

The frustrating part was that this would have been the perfect set-up, save for some important unknowns, such as which Espada Aizen had chosen to accompany him and which pets had been included. Any attempt at a rebellion right now would result in an ugly mess as the Arrancar and Shinigami battled one another, with allies turning into enemies thanks to whoever held their Claims. Then there was the whole issue of robbing Aizen of the power the Throne gave him. Without knowing if she’d have both the conspirators and the promised help from the Swarm’s General, it was yet another thing she couldn’t risk doing. The Swarm had been to the Royal Realm before; Zee had admitted as much, but Karin had no idea if they’d be able get there again, especially from here.

Still, there was a slim chance she could work something out with the Swarm’s representative during the skirmish. Karin would just have to keep her eyes open. She doubted even Aizen would survive a dip in beetle acid. A slow, agonizing death as the stuff ate him alive would be a fitting death for the bastard.

The return of Diaemus and Hana interrupted her brooding. The first carried several cleaned and gutted rabbits and the second had an armload of dry wood for the fire. Diaemus had apparently seen her previous reaction towards the un-skinned rabbits Grimmjow had tried to offer his mate and smartly learned not to make the same mistake.

“Thank you Diaemus-kun,” she said and smiled at him. Spearing the meat and setting it over the fire to roast, she pulled out the dwindling bag of rice while Orihime filled a pot with clean snow.

The rabbits and rice had almost finished cooking when Ulquiorra returned from his patrol, and the rest of them had finished eating by the time Grimmjow made it back to their encampment. _His_ late return might have something to do with the wild pig he had tossed over a shoulder. Rabbit was all fine and dandy, but the idea of pork made Karin’s mouth water after days of bland-tasting bunnies and travel rations. In addition, Ajuga would be starving when they finally retrieved her and the resulting commotion would chase away any game. With the cold weather, they didn’t need to worry about the meat going bad or flies getting on it, but she didn’t think, between two Espada and their hybrid children, that it would last very long

After dinner, she descended into Jinzen again, and repeated what she’d done that morning. Ajuga was right where she had been last time and the Hive’s inhabitants had settled down for the night. The quality of her daughter’s reiatsu hadn’t changed, but at least it hadn’t deteriorated either. Reassured, she cast her sight to the south. There was still no sign of the others. After an hour of fruitless searching, she shook her head in response to the silent, questioning looks the others sent her.

“I believe you will catch sight of them in the morning,” Ulquiorra stated, unperturbed by the idea of another night there.

“Probably,” she agreed.

The fact that her daughter was so close, yet unreachable tormented Karin. The need to hold back on a rescue also frustrated her mate, from emotions she could feel through their mutual Claim. He still looked like his normal, cocky, confident self on the outside, but he was just as worried about Ajuga as she was and doing his best to cover it up.

_Men and their need for posturing,_ she sighed to herself.

Still, she silently offered him what support she could that wouldn’t make him appear weak in front of Ulquiorra. That wasn’t a hard thing to do, considering Orihime had wrapped her body around the Fourth Espada, complaining of the cold and doing her best imitation of a coat. Diaemus, seeing the display, did his best not to look in his parents’ direction.

They set up the order for night watch and Karin curled up in her bedroll next to Grimmjow’s warm body.

“Tomorrow,” he whispered in her ear.

“Hmm?” she murmured, confused.

“Tomorrow we get our daughter back, whether the others show up or not. By the time we are done pouring hot water down it, there won’t be a thing moving in that ant hill,” he growled.

Karin nodded in agreement. One way or another, they’d rescue their child. She still wanted to approach the Swarm openly and possibly negotiate for Ajuga’s return but she couldn’t predict whether such an opportunity would arise.

“We are so doomed,” she muttered. Grimmjow’s arm tightened around her at the sound.

“Huh?”

“Nothing.”

The next morning was cold and foggy and Karin was reluctant to leave the relative warmth of the sleeping bag. Grimmjow was already up and about, roasting meat from the boar over the fire for breakfast while Hana watched the pot of rice. From the faint red stain that she’d seen at the corner of his mouth, her mate had probably already helped himself to some of the raw boar, once it had thawed enough to chew. Orihime still slept and there was no sign of Ulquiorra or Diaemus. She decided that the two were likely on patrol. Crawling reluctantly from bed, she immediately dove into her coat and zipped it up. Once that was done, she took care of the rest of the morning’s business and finally settled against one of the tree roots, closing her eyes and taking a few deep breaths.

While her body was still relaxed, she deepened her breathing and entered Jinzen, then cast her ‘sight’ at the Hive. Her daughter’s condition hadn’t changed and she could see Zee congregating with some of the other, weaker Generals, but otherwise all seemed ‘normal’ within the structure itself. She let herself linger on her daughter’s energy for a few minutes before turning her attention back the way they’d come. Half an hour later, she’d reached the end of her range of vision, just as Hana announced the rice had finished cooking and that breakfast was ready. Orihime stirred, sat up and began combing her fingers through her long, tangled hair.

She was about to drop her ‘sight’ when a faint glimmer, the size of a spark from the campfire, caught her inner eyes. Jerking upright, and drawing everyone’s attention towards her, she focused more intently on it as it grew in size, approaching from the south. Behind it, another, dimmer glow appeared. Both moved towards the scouting party’s position at high speed and she didn’t need to see their forms to recognize them for what they were.

“I can see Aizen and Starrk,” she proclaimed, trying to keep the excitement out of her voice and then added, “They will probably be here by noon, maybe early evening at the latest.”

As a rule, Karin had never been pleased to see Aizen before, but this marked the lone exception to it. The rest of the attack force would be with him and that meant Ajuga’s rescue was nigh. Soon, she would have her daughter in her arms. Then she could scold the crap out of the girl for doing something as hare-brained and reckless as to attack a General. After that, she’d blister Ajuga’s father’s ears for his contribution, both learned and genetic, to their daughter’s risky temperament. She smiled, showing a few teeth and narrowing her eyes, looking forward to delivering both rebukes.

“Ah. Then we will soon recover Ajuga…” Ulquiorra remarked, taking a bowl of rice and pork from Hana and digging into it.

“…and bury those,” her mate said as he took two steps back from the fire, finishing the Fourth’s sentence, “fucking insects in an icy grave.”

Karin was too elated to think about smacking him for his language. She agreed with him this time, ignoring the cursing. However, he still winced when she flung herself into his arms, holding him tightly as strong emotions raced through her. It didn’t take long for him to return her embrace though.

“We’ll get her out of there,” he promised. “Now eat.”

“I know.”

Hana pressed a cup of strong tea and a bowl into her hands and Karin downed her breakfast as fast as she could, her stomach doing excited flip-flops all the while. She’d do her child no good if she were hungry when they stormed the fortress. The others seemed to have the same idea and any conversation took a back seat to eating. After another cup of tea, the young woman set her bowl aside and once again let her ‘sight’ wander back to the Swarm’s base, seeking out Ajuga’s energy.

This time she gasped and then froze. Grimmjow gripped her as he felt her stiffen and received a sudden rush of panic.

“What is it?”

“They are moving her,” Karin declared, biting her lip and stepping away from him. Twisting around, she turned to face the Hive, the alarm on her face growing by the second.

“Where are they taking her?” Grimmjow demanded sharply, even as the others came to stand around her.

“I don’t know…. Shit!” she screeched, and raced from their hiding place, bolting for the edge of the forest and the frozen lake beyond it. Grimmjow was hot on her heels as she threaded her way through the trees, picking as short a route as she could through the snowdrifts.

“Karin-san! Wait!” Hana cried after her.

The others finally caught up with her when she reached the spot where the forest ended and the edge of the lake ice began. Grimmjow reached out and snagged her upper arm, bringing her to a halt. Diaemus, who had thought to carry Orihime, set his mother down briefly.

“She’s running through what I think are corridors and they are chasing her,” Karin informed them. “I think she’s escaped!”

“But…” Hana started to protest, only to have Ulquiorra interrupt the young Shinigami by raising one hand.

“Aizen-Kami and the rest well be here soon enough. We will strike now and create as much confusion as we can,” the green-eyed Espada declared, earning a surprised look from them all. “Let us ‘kick their asses,’ as I believe you would say, yes?” he asked Grimmjow.

“ _Now_ you are talking, Ulquiorra! That woman has done your pale ass some good!” the Sixth cackled, rubbing his palms together in anticipation. Orihime blushed, but she still smiled triumphantly at the compliment. The Fourth Espada’s eyes narrowed a bit at the other’s language, then sighed and delivered his instructions to the rest of them.

“Diaemus, Hana, Orihime, remain with Karin and get to Ajuga. Get her outside and make sure she’s uninjured. Once she is safe, let us know. Grimmjow and I will destroy the upper portion of the dome with a barrage of Ceros. Keep your mother safe.” He directed the last bit to his son, his normally monotonous voice becoming stern.

“I will sir,” Diaemus assured him.

The two Espada took off, abandoning stealth and attacking the line of Locusts on their way out to gather wood at random. The first three they encountered fell in a spray of goo, the stuff splattering on the snow beneath them, followed by the insects’ remains. The effect on the Swarm’s base was instantaneous. Locusts boiled up from almost every ‘exit’ portal, intent on neutralizing this new threat. The two ‘threats’ readily engaged anything that came at them. The drifts beneath the fight took on a sickly viscous green hue and sported numerous Locust bodies in various stages of dismemberment. The hive-mind the Locusts shared seemed fixated on the two Arrancar, as they paid no mind to the four smaller forms hurrying across the lake as fast as two pairs of Shunpo-aided feet and one pair of wings could take them. With the Swarm’s attention on Grimmjow and Ulquiorra, the rest of the scouting party clambered into the closest reachable entrance and slipped inside.

“It is time. Come!”

Zee stalked into the room without warning and made the announcement with all of the arrogance she’d come to expect from him. Ajuga glared hatefully at the General as he removed the chain that went to her neck collar from the wall and proceeded to walk towards the exit. The hybrid girl literally dug her claws into the nest and refused to budge. Zee, obviously not expecting her to put up a fight, nearly toppled backward when he met with her resistance.

“Go away, bug. I’m still tired.”

She yawned melodramatically, and proceeded to curl back up on the silken bed, hoping she’d made her point. Instead, she heard his jaw clench in frustration. Bracing her body for the expected tug of war, Ajuga was not disappointed as he yanked on her leash, harder this time. Her claws sank into the bedrock supporting the silk nest and she held back a growl of pain as the collar dug into her neck and her throat. She hissed at him and pulled back, gaining about a foot of chain. This went on for a good ten minutes, during which he had managed to get her out of the nest and to the doorway. With a wall to snag, she had much better leverage than the stone floor, which now had dozens of deep furrows from her claws.

“Enough of this!” Zee snarled and then shouted, “The Realms _must_ be stabilized, or all will collapse!”

“Fuck you!” she spat at him.

He gave another sharp yank, and this time she deliberately let go of the wall, calculating the angle of the tug. As a result, Zee ended up with an armload of fury-fuelled claws and teeth as she landed on him. The move and her use of the momentum of his last pull evidently surprised him. In the confusion, Ajuga drew a large amount of ichor, enough to know she’d put a serious dent in his exoskeleton.

The girl quickly swiped her claws across the collar, ridding herself of its irritating weight. When Zee finally managed to get a hold of her and throw her off him, she let him. She was certain that the look of shock on his face when he realized the chain in his hand remained slack instead of being drawn taunt was one worth remembering. Regrettably, she never saw it. The moment her paws hit the floor, she was gone in a burst of Sonido, racing out of the door with every ounce of speed she could muster.

She didn’t bother trying to find the Hive’s entrance, since her first objective involved putting as much space between her and Zee as possible. Instead, she took as many corners as she could in a bid to confuse anyone following her. Cloaking her reiatsu was second nature to her, so she hid herself as well. Some sort of alarm went up, because the low, persistent buzzing that usually filled the Swarm’s base with ambient noise turned into a shrill keening as the entire nest roared to life.

It was a good thing she spent a large amount of time with Szayel. Doing so let her listen in on his research, and thus she knew that, like most insects, the members of the Swarm did not rely entirely on their eyesight. The construction of their eyes and their vision was much different from hers. Instead, they depended on their sense of touch, as well as what their feelers and antennae could detect. By remaining completely still at times, Ajuga managed to elude her pursuers. Locusts rushed right by her, failing to notice she was there. Even one of the beetles lumbered past without stopping when she hit a larger tunnel.

She paused as she stared down the tunnel after it. The beetles _had_ to get out somehow. This tunnel would likely connect to another and eventually, she’d be able to follow the hulking things to the nearest exit and freedom. Once outside, she could hide, rest, and hunt to regain her strength. Then it would only be a matter of waiting for a clear night. She prayed that she remembered the lessons on constellations that ‘take-ji had given her. She’d need them, after all, to find her way south and to stay ahead of Zee. He didn’t seem the type to want to let her go without giving chase.

Ajuga swallowed and when she judged the beetle was far enough ahead for her to avoid detection, edged around the corner into the bigger space and trotted after it.

_If Diaemus could do it, so can I,_ she thought, trying to conjure up the confidence needed for what would probably be a very long, taxing journey home.

_‘It’ll be easy, right?’_


	54. Ant Hill: Part 1

Grimmjow always had been someone capable of grabbing the spotlight and shaking it until the thing shattered. As promised, both Espada were doing a superb job keeping the Swarm’s attention fixed on them. Karin, for her part, did her best to lead the others to Ajuga. However, navigating the actual corridors of the three-dimensional ‘diagram’ she could see via the Swarm’s movements was easier in theory than in practice. It wasn’t as if it was a fixed blueprint, since the ‘lines’ consisted of constantly moving insects’ energy signatures. Her daughter, ironically, wasn’t helping matters either. Ajuga’s particular energy mass darted about randomly, making her hard to track. The only good thing about it was that the Swarm was having just as much trouble following Ajuga as Karin was. She could see Zee as well, and a part of her wanted to pay him a visit and crack his carapace. Zee, however, was no longer near Ajuga, the latter having thoroughly eluded him, so she abandoned the impulse to track down the General for some retribution and concentrated on the path ahead of her.

“Well?” Orihime whispered, waiting for the signal to advance.

“This place is a bloody maze,” Karin grouched, rubbing her forehead in an attempt to stave off a stress-induced headache. “I think we are getting closer though.”

“Why don’t we flare our reiatsu? That would give Ajuga-chan a heads up that we are here. The Swarm has never shown any indication that they can detect reiatsu,” Hana proposed.

Karin bit her lip, thinking about it. It was true the Swarm seemed oblivious to reiatsu. Right now, she was the only one who could see Ajuga, and if anything separated her from the other three, the others had no way to find the girl. If they let Ajuga know they were there, her daughter might try to get to them instead of scampering around in circles. After spending all of this time within the Hive, she might also be familiar with the tunnels, possibly knowing a better way out than trying to retrace their steps.

“Alright, let’s do it.”

Diaemus allowed his reiatsu to build, letting it shine like a beacon for a full minute. In Hana’s case, she paused and uttered the command word to remove the seal that Aizen had given her as a child. The risk of doing so was low, as there were no Arrancar here to entice with her powers. Besides, as Harribel’s fraccion she was safe from such things. Diaemus’ eyes grew a little larger at the true extent of his childhood friend’s strength, but he said nothing.

Ajuga’s signature froze, letting Karin know that her daughter had picked up on the equivalent of a loudly shouted greeting. Sure enough, her daughter changed course, doubling back and moving in their direction. She even stopped hiding her own bright reiatsu, letting it flare brilliantly in response. Karin held her breath, waiting for any indication that her daughter had become a target. She let it out when there was no change to the way that the Swarm moved. The insects still scuttled for every exit in an orderly manner. There was no indication that the reiatsu flare had tipped off the Generals either. She hoped that some of her relief made it through to Grimmjow.

“It’s working!” she told them. “This way!”

Karin led them forward and to the left. She tried to keep her cool, but the closer she moved towards Ajuga, the more adrenaline she felt pumping through her veins. Of course, much of that came from Grimmjow. It had been a long time since her mate was able to let loose with all he had without the fear of harming others. She wondered how many Locusts had already dropped dead from coming too close to Ulquiorra and Grimmjow’s combined strength. In this desolate, northern waste, there was no need to hold back to avoid harming the civilian population or the line troopers. Then again, anything weak enough to succumb to the two Espada’s reiatsu levels, their scouting party wanted dead anyway.

A dose of pure glee jolted her, nearly causing her to stumble. Grimmjow’s emotions were far more potent than anything she had ever felt outside of their bedroom, or in whatever _other_ location he happened to pin her down and have his way with her. Her mate was _really_ enjoying this. Both Arrancar’s reiatsu flashed wildly above the dome as they worked out their anger on the Swarm for daring to target their children. It was a good thing she wore Szayel’s shades. Otherwise, the overwhelming light might have blinded her. Worse, she might have lost track of Ajuga’s reiatsu as the glare from the two Espada drowned it out. Zee’s easily distinguishable signature had changed. The General and a few of the other, stronger leaders were en route to the commotion outside. As far as she could tell, they’d called off the pursuit of Ajuga to fend off the Hive’s attackers.

Karin increased her pace, until she gave up any pretence of restraint and used Shunpo to move faster. Diaemus bent down and let his mother hop on his back so they could keep up. They were so close… She rounded another corner and her arms flew open as Ajuga leaped into her embrace.

“Mama!” Ajuga cried, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. Her child was filthy, ragged, too thin for her liking, her fur matted with old blood and she was the most beautiful thing Karin had seen since the whole horrible ordeal had started.

“Oh, Ajuga!”

Karin returned her daughter’s hug, clutching her so tightly that her arms began to hurt, but she didn’t care. “I am _never_ letting you out of my sight again,” she vowed. Ajuga didn’t even bother to argue, sniffling against her mother’s shoulder and trying not to do any damage to the human woman with her claws.

Suddenly there were more limbs to contend with as Orihime and Hana joined them in their group hug, tears of relief washing down their faces as well. The walls of the Hive shook ominously, the rumbling cutting their joyful reunion short. Somewhere, the sound of ice cracking made it very clear that they needed to get out and quickly.

“Ajuga,” Diaemus said as the women pulled apart.

“Diaemus!” Ajuga replied and then smirked. “I knew you could make it!”

“Indeed,” he agreed, and then turned his eyes upwards towards the trembling ceiling. “It would be prudent to escape before Father and Grimmjow-san bring down the entire Hive around us,” he noted. “It seems the lure of battle distracted them from recalling that we are inside of it.”

“Yeah, good idea,” Hana agreed then looked around at the tunnel walls. “Um, can anyone remember the way out?”

It was a good question. They had taken so many corners and ramps that there was no way of truly knowing where they were. She could use her sight to find the parade of insects heading towards the surface and follow them, but she really didn’t want to join them, lest the Locusts attack them or worse, summon Zee and his Generals.

While she pondered this, the boy with them made a decision. A flash of green light nearly blinded them, followed by a loud explosion. Snow and ice rained down about them and mist from the heated water washed over them, dampening their hair and the exposed skin on their faces and hands.

“Diaemus!” Orihime reprimanded her son, reaching up to pick bits of ice from her tresses. “Was that really necessary?”

“I have provided an exit, Mother,” he explained. “It is not the first time I’ve done so, and I thought the same method would work again.”

Karin looked up through the large hole in the tunnel’s ceiling, leading all the way to the surface and the blue sky beyond. Then she shrugged. Well, they _had_ planned on bringing the Hive down and whatever window there might have been for any negotiation with the Swarm had now closed. The dark-haired woman sighed in resignation. What was one more hole, more or less?

“I love the way you think, Diaemus!” Ajuga’s chuckle brought Karin back to the present.

“That’s odd. I distinctly recall you complaining about my usual methods of applying reason to a problem,” Diaemus returned, though Karin could hear a trace of humour in his words. “Rather frequently, I might add.”

Ajuga and Hana laughed, Orihime murmured something about ‘children’ and Karin shook her head. Gathering reiatsu about her feet, she leaped up into the air and started to ‘hop’ her way up and out through the vertical shaft. Orihime jumped once more onto her son’s back, Hana followed Karin’s example and Ajuga just dug her claws into the ice, occasionally jumping on the air to help with her ascent.

A scene of utter mayhem greeted them the moment they emerged from the Hive. The flying members of the Swarm milled about, trying to organize in much the same way hornets might if someone threw a brick at their nest. The great, black mass of them were easy pickings for the two Espada as they fired Cero after Cero into the bulk of the insect cloud. With such dense numbers of their own troops in the way, the Beetles could not invoke their acid without creating far too many casualties.

“Wow, you go Papa!” Ajuga exclaimed as Grimmjow’s bright blue energy continually lit up the cloud from within, in much the same way lightning would illuminate a thundercloud. Carcasses fell from the seething mass of insects like rain after every strike.

“Come on. We have to get out of the way!” Hana cried over the sound of the Swarm’s buzzing and the crackling of Cero-based combat.

Ajuga had plastered her ears against her head against the loud noise. Karin didn’t blame her. The sound was getting to her too, like a swarm of bees rattling about her brain. It was nails-on-a-chalkboard irritating. For some reason she didn’t understand, it was also getting louder, the pitch changing until she could feel the vibrations in the slippery dome under her feet.

The sound was also the only warning they got before all hell broke loose.

The ice below them shook violently, causing them to leap into the air. Locusts scattered in all directions as the Hive erupted like a volcano. Pieces of the Hive’s exterior crashed and tumbled around them as the hill exploded outwards, sending debris flying to smash into the frozen lake. Some chunks hit hard enough to break through to the water below, causing huge splashes of frigid water to rise into the air.

The cause of the destruction shook its gargantuan body and emerged from the depths of the ruptured structure. Karin had only glimpsed the massive creature through her sight but once she got a good look at it, she found that she wished she’d never seen it at all.

It looked like nothing Karin had ever seen before, but if she were to describe it, she would have told Szayel to take a millipede and breed it to a porcupine, for that was the best description she could apply to the long, segmented, spiky… thing. Clouds of what looked like exhaust came from the tips of each of the creature’s spikes, and she prayed it was just warm oxygen hitting the Arctic air, rather than anything toxic. Either way, the discharge served to shroud the 'porcu-peed' in mist, giving it a frightening appearance. Then she caught sight of its mouth, filled with angrily clicking mandibles and decided that ‘frightening’ didn’t do the thing justice.

“Holy fuck!” Ajuga breathed.

Karin was too stunned to reprimand her daughter for her language, since ‘holy fuck’ summed up her own reaction nicely. If she thought Grimmjow had been excited before, the thrill he sent her at the sight of this new opponent left her gasping. She hadn’t felt him this agitated since he’d fought her brother in the park. Their bond had still been new and hadn’t transmitted as clearly or strongly as it did now.

The sky was black with insects as the Hive finished disgorging every bug within it. Beetles crawled out of the debris field created when the explosion occurred, while more Locusts flew to join the cloud surrounding the two Espada, trying to overwhelm them with sheer numbers. Even the Scarabs emerged, shaking their multicolored wings and looking rather pissed, if Karin was any judge of their body language thanks to her time spent with Mushi. They began moving out of the combat zone while grooming their wings on the way.

Oh yeah, Karin thought, they were upset, and they oddly reminded her of Szayel as they tried to both run and keep up with their personal hygiene. Her common sense kicked in at that point and she waved her hands frantically, causing the others to look away from the mess the battlefield had become and to turn to her.

“We need to get out of here!” Karin shouted over the noise. “Hurry!”

They bolted ahead of the thick mass of Locusts swirling about the flashes of light that marked the presence of the two fighting Espada. A few glances to the rear let her know that, so far, no one had noticed their escape, and Karin planned on keeping it that way. The debris field from the exploded Hive offered them cover as they raced across the frozen lake, trying to avoid the dangerous holes in the ice and any stray Beetles that might be hiding in the rubble. Eventually, they reached the far shore and began climbing, coming to rest on a cliff overlooking the lake.

Karin went to her knees in the shelter of a large boulder, her heart racing with adrenaline. Ajuga collapsed to her rear, panting and favouring her arm. Orihime slipped from her son’s back and then raced to the girl’s side, her _Sōten Kisshun_ snapping up around the young Arrancar. Ajuga let out a breath of relief as her half-healed and recently aggravated injuries started to mend.

“At least we don’t have to worry about bringing the Hive down now,” Hana quipped.

“Indeed,” Diaemus agreed, scrubbing at his face with one hand.

“I hope Grimmjow and Ulquiorra are alright,” Orihime frowned, looking over her shoulder at the cloud of foes. They’d have to skirt around the entire lake to get back to their encampment, if possible, to grab as much as they could before they fled.

“Father would never be defeated by such creatures,” her son said, sounding very sure of his statement.

“Yeah, and Papa is too damn stubborn to stop fighting, even if they do sting him,” Ajuga agreed, breathing hard as her feet came to rest on the snow-covered ground.

All Karin could physically see when she looked back at the Hive was a swirling mass of insects. Her other sight showed her Grimmjow and Ulquiorra as bright sparks of light amongst a dense fog as they fought. The giant 'porcu-peed' was on its way towards the fray, lumbering its way through the pieces of what had once been half of the dome and Karin bit her lip nervously. Those spines looked incredibly sharp and she still had no idea if the steam or gas coming out from them posed a threat to the Espada. At least, she told herself, the ‘porcu-peed’ lacked any wings. As long as Grimmjow and Ulquiorra remained in the air, it was unlikely they would have to engage the creature.

_Who am I kidding? Grimmjow is going to be all over that thing,_ she thought in dismay.

“What took you so long?”

Ajuga’s question, directed at Hana, startled the other girl, before the Shinigami grinned shamelessly and jerked a thumb at her winged friend.

“Diaemus-kun took a long nap after he made it back.”

The boy scowled at Hana while Ajuga let out a short laugh and shook her head. Karin let herself relax for a few minutes, the level of adrenaline in her bloodstream diminishing now that she was out of immediate danger. She wasn’t worried about Grimmjow or Ulquiorra, even in that swirling mass. The Locusts lacked the strength to get through either of the Espadas’ Heirro. Strangely, the Beetles looked as if they were setting up a perimeter, rather than moving to join the Locusts. She could make out the Scarabs from her vantage point. They’d gathered off to the side, surrounded by what she assumed were Cockroaches and possibly Pill Bugs. It also looked as if the Generals had joined them. It was hard to tell what was going on at this distance. Karin threw her arm across her face, fatigue that she couldn’t really afford to feel right now washing over her. Honestly, she didn’t care what they did, so long as they did it over there and left them alone.

“There, all better!” Orihime chirped happily, as her shield fell away.

“Thanks!”

Ajuga checked her arm’s range of movement, wriggled her fingers and gave a nod of satisfaction when her limb functioned properly. They were ready to move. It was time to call in the two men and make a run for it. Although, with such a large opponent on the field, and considering how much fun her mate was having, Karin wondered if reining them in before they reduced every bug to a stain on the snow was a possibility. She doubted that he’d even listen to her at this point. It couldn’t hurt to let them take out their frustrations on as many of the Swarm as possible, for making them come all this way to retrieve Ajuga as well as for nabbing both children in the first place. After all, Aizen’s group was on the way and destroying the Hive _had_ been part of their mission. She might as well let them go at it while they were still going strong. Karin was content to sit and try to calm down enough to send Grimmjow an emotional ‘message’, to let him know that they were in the clear.

“Um, Karin-san, is it just me, or is the Swarm coming this way?” Hana asked nervously, getting to her feet. Cracking an eye open, Karin turned to look over her shoulder.

The black, buzzing cloud had shifted. Instead of hovering near the remains of the Hive, it and everything in it had begun to move across the ice. Karin sat up fully as she realized that Hana was right. The Swarm swirled and parted, finally revealing the fight going on between the ‘porcu-peed.’ However, Karin paid little heed to the larger battle, focusing on the Locust swarm heading right for them. She had no idea if the bugs were getting out of the way of the attacks, or if one of the Generals had figured out where their escaped prisoner had gone. Either way, the horde of insects would be on them in less than a minute.

They couldn’t hope to defend against that many enemies at once. The Locusts would capture her and Ajuga and they wouldn’t hesitate to slaughter the others. Hana and Orihime wouldn’t survive such an onslaught. Even if Ulquiorra and Grimmjow were to disengage from the huge creature and help them, they’d stand no chance and might not even make it in time.

Orihime’s _Santen Kesshun_ flew into place before them, for all the good it was going to do them, and Tsubaki raced out ahead, slicing his way through insects, but hardly making a dent. The rest of them fell into a fighting stance, bracing for the impact…

…only to see the oncoming bugs smash headlong into a shining array of pink, glowing swords.

They stared, shocked, as the weapons dissolved into millions of tiny blades that reflected the late morning light. They shredded the front line of Locusts, whose death screeches causing the very air to shiver. From a different angle, Karin saw a series of bright blue beams sear across the Swarm’s flank. She sensed the imminent explosions before they happened, and she dragged both Ajuga and Hana down behind the golden triangle Orihime had placed to shield them, while Diaemus wrapped his wings around his mother and ducked. Ajuga clapped her hands over her ears as the blue lights blew up everything they touched and a wild rush of wind that smelled strongly of burnt Locust guts whipped around them, followed by a dusting of ash, most of it deflecting off of Orihime‘s shield.

Byakuya appeared beside Karin, the noble’s face only lightly sheened with sweat, having pushed hard to intercept the Swarm before they could overrun the scouting party.

“Ajuga-chan, you’re alright!” Lilynette’s oddly distorted voice cheered as Starrk landed beside Byakuya. The First certainly didn’t look winded. In fact, he almost appeared bored.

Karin couldn’t recall ever having seen Starrk’s Resurrección. Other than a change of apparel for the furrier, and a shift of his mask from the usual jawbone collar to a rectangular eye patch reminiscent of Lilynette’s framing the empty spot where his left eye should have been, he didn’t look all that different. Every other Espada had at least a change of forms, taking on various animalistic traits. In contrast, Starrk almost reminded her of a gunslinger in one of the movies her father had liked to watch from time to time, which made sense when she thought of his name.

“Lili-chan? Where are you?” Hana’s head whipped around, trying to find Starrk’s other half.

“Right here!”

Lilynette’s cheerful, disembodied voice startled everyone. Karin blinked and stared at the pair of pistols in Starrk’s hands, then at the empty holsters hanging from his belt. It was the first time she’d seen any indication that anyone in the Seireitei, Shinigami or Arrancar, knew how to use a modern weapon, let alone a firearm. Then again, none of the other Espada could boast of a Resurrección that also doubled as a small, mouthy companion, part-time babysitter, and errand girl.

“The rest are right behind us. We were the fastest,” Starrk spoke up, explaining their presence and the lack of the others before she could ask. It was hard to hear his lazy drawl over the sound of insects dying as Byakuya did his best to hold the line back with what she assumed was his Bankai. The number of blades definitely suggested it, as his Shikai had far fewer parts. She hadn’t had an opportunity to see him fight, as they didn’t often defend the same battle lines during a Swarm attack, but she certainly didn’t question its effectiveness.

The mass of Locusts wavered slightly at the new arrivals, but their hesitation didn’t last long. With only a short delay, they came at them again in a thick cloud. Starrk alternatively holstered one pistol and shot with the other, the barrels of the guns blazing each time he pulled the trigger, Lilynette’s enthusiastic shouts almost inaudible above the din. Both attacks took out more and more of the flying menaces, enough to slow the creeping progression of the insect horde. They also allowed the others to collect themselves enough to go on the defensive.

Tsubaki raced back into the fray, slicing his way through Locust after Locust, cutting through wings and legs in an attempt to disable as many as possible. Hana chanted incantations next to her, lightning bolts leaping from the girl’s fingertips to fry successive enemies as the bolts sizzled from one opponent to the next. Taking a cue from Hana, Karin fired her own bolt of chain lightning. Ajuga and Diaemus engaged the Swarm, tossing Cero after Cero into the writhing mass.

Despite all of this, their combined attacks did nothing more than remove a hundred grains of sand from a beach filled to bursting with it.

“This isn’t getting us anywhere!” Karin shouted as the Swarm closed in on them, flying over the bodies of their dead as if they were not even there. Byakuya frowned and gritted his teeth, while Stark actually glared at the approaching wall of Locusts and fired off round after round of blue-tinged Ceros. Karin could feel the heat from each round on her face and knew that soon, it would be too dangerous for Starrk to keep shooting as the Swarm closed in lest he hurt those he was trying to defend.

That’s when Karin heard a gigantic series of ‘CRACKS’ from the direction of the lake, in quick succession and sounding much like the popping of bullets leaving the barrel of a rifle. A few seconds later, she saw a colossal wave of water rise from the fractured surface and engulf a portion of the oncoming bugs. She could hear the combined resonance of Sonido and Shunpo as vibrations against her skin, before the wave locked into place, freezing before her eyes. The wave vanished, along with anything in it, as a glacier replaced it. Then a sandaled foot belonging to someone with familiar white hair and an equally white haori stomped down upon the top of the edifice and shattered the thing into a multitude of insect-laden shards.

The Taichou of the 3rd Division spared them a glance over his shoulder before another wave of water surged out of the cracks in the lake ice and he got back to work. With both abundant cold and water at their disposal, Toshiro and Harribel began systematically reducing the number of Locusts via their combined attacks. They weren’t alone, either.

Aizen, to Karin’s surprise, appeared behind them, a calm, calculating look on his face as he surveyed the damage Toshiro and Harribel inflicted and continued to cause. The rest of his handpicked minions appeared behind him. His eyes flickered their way briefly, before he turned to look at the battle between Grimmjow, Ulquiorra and their horrifically out-sized enemy. From his smug expression, Karin surmised that he had already assessed the situation and had conceived of a thousand different ways he could achieve victory.

“Destroy the outpost, and everything that moves within it.”

He gave the order with an air of absolute authority and the way he said it told everyone he would expect nothing less than absolute success in fulfilling it. The others leaped at the enemy, all of them releasing their various weapons for maximum devastation. The clash looked like a pod of whales going after a school of herring. Szayel arrived at the tail end, Tesra by his side. Both of them looked as if they were on their last legs. The two clearly hadn’t had a fun time racing up here. Renji, bundled against the cold, hesitated just long enough to make sure Szayel would be able to stand, before disappearing into the melée. Zabimaru’s howl was quickly lost beneath the sounds of buzzing and conflict.

The scientist’s eyes lit up at the sight of Ajuga.

“Ajuga-chan, did they do anything to you?” he asked, trotting to her daughter’s side. His golden eyes gave her a thorough ‘examination’ before Ajuga sighed and shook her head.

“Not a thing Szay, other than starving me and keeping me locked up and chained,” she told him with a scowl. “I think Zee has a few loose screws, though.”

“Zee?” Aizen interjected, one eyebrow going up. Karin noticed that Szayel’s hands had gone very still, but gave him credit for not going as stiff as board and tipping off Aizen via his posture.

“That’s what the General calls himself. Spoke really clearly, but he knows fuck-all about us. The idiot tried to feed Diaemus-kun and I some pathetic Plus soul,” she snorted derisively.

Karin frantically tried to catch Ajuga’s attention without alerting Aizen to what she was doing, warning her daughter to drop it there. She didn’t want to think about the possible outcome if Aizen were to ask her if he’d mentioned the reason Zee had taken her. That was not, however, the question he asked.

“Are any of you injured?” Aizen asked, the question taking them all by surprise.

“No, Kami-sama,” Karin answered for them.

“Good. Then do not disobey my orders,” he stated, nodding in the direction of the now-greatly-expanded fight going on over the lake.

Karin stared at him, shocked that he would order them directly into the fight so soon, and then looked back at the battle. She opened her mouth to protest, to ask for a short breather, for they had already been at it for some time, but Ajuga spoke first.

“Yes! Time for a little payback!”

Ajuga cracked her knuckles and launched herself at the closest enemy she could find, shredding the Locust with a vicious smirk on her face. Diaemus and Hana shared a quick ‘not again’ glance between them before they hurried after her, trying to remain on their friend’s tail. Karin could only stare at the space Ajuga had vacated only seconds before. Then she swore up a storm in the privacy of her head, chasing after the children and cursing Aizen to any level of Hell that would have him.

Off in the distance, the Scarabs had finished their project as they formed a large circle and lifted their massive, glittering wings up, aligning them tip to tip. She suspected that they were summoning reinforcements, and she certainly didn’t want that to happen. Ajuga must have thought the same thing, because that was where the girl headed next. Karin cursed the fact that the Arrancar had greater speed at their disposal, as well as the exhaustion that weighed on her. She was, after all, still only human.

Szayel didn’t waste time catching up to her. He had no desire to stay with Aizen, even with Orihime there, especially when the tyrant might construe any reluctance as ‘disobedience.’ Aizen had blatantly told them to ‘get out there and fight’ in so many words. The Seventh did keep his hand on Fornicaras’s hilt the entire time and she thought that the gesture made a nice cover. Protecting his ‘mistress’ was allowable, after all.

“Karin-sama, can you tell me anything about that new specimen?” he shouted to her over the din, pointing towards the thickest part of the conflict and the monstrous, multi-legged thing.

“The ‘porcu-peed?’ Not much, I’m afraid. I think it’s the source of the extra oxygen the Swarm needs to operate in our Realm,” she shouted back, indicating the hot steam coming from the vents in each spike. “Maybe it also supplies the heat and the humidity too.”

Szayel rolled his eyes at her choice of nomenclature.

“Nicknames… _why_ must you give everything a nickname?” he complained to the uncaring heavens, raising his hands in dramatic supplication. Karin snorted back and grabbed his arm.

“Forget the ‘porcu-peed’ for now. What do you think those Scarabs are up to?”

She swatted aside a Locust as she asked this, cracking its thorax with a reiatsu-enhanced punch. The damn things had started to converge on her, and she suspected that Zee was the one sending them in her direction. She could see the General by the Scarabs, with Ajuga making a beeline for him. Worse, Hana and Diaemus were right behind her.

Karin wanted to shriek in frustration. Had her daughter learned _nothing_ of her last encounter with the bastard? She honestly didn’t know which to blame the most for Ajuga’s irrationality, the Jaegerjaquez or the Kurosaki bloodline. Honestly, mixing the two had not been the smartest decision ever made.

“I don’t know,” he frowned, looking at the pillar, before suddenly going pale and swallowing nervously. “I think…I think they are creating a gateway.”

“To their world?” she asked, hoping that they would do the smart thing and sound a retreat, rather than bring in fresh troops. Szayel shook his head.

“No, somewhere in ours,” he answered, puzzled over why they would choose to do so. He told her as much too. Fear pricked her belly as she looked at the large pillar as it disappeared high into the sky.

Into the sky…

Understanding dawned and with it, the adrenaline was back, her heart hammering as she figured out what Zee might be planning to do.

“Fuck!” she nearly screamed aloud, forcing more speed out of her body and praying that she got there in time. Szayel could only shout “Karin-sama!” before he went after her, panting heavily in her wake.


	55. Ant Hill: Part 2

Ajuga raced towards the large circle of Scarabs, their wings glittering beautifully as they shimmered and summoned a large… well, it didn’t look like a portal. It really looked like a pillar of light. Maybe it was some sort of beacon, she decided, summoning more Locusts to defend the outpost. As much as she wanted to join her father and Ulquiorra in their battle with the giant horror, she knew she would be better off dealing with whatever trick the Swarm had planned. Besides, she could see the Generals massing near the light, and she had a bone to pick with one of them… a few of his ‘bones’, actually, if he had any. This time she knew what he was capable of and she wouldn’t be going into a scuffle with him blindly.

The collective buzz and whine of the Swarm had really begun to get to her. She would give almost anything for some peace and quiet. Her ears would be ringing for days after this was all over, if not weeks.

_Well, when I’m done, there’ll be one less bug to give me a headache_ , she decided, narrowing her eyes and picking out Zee from among the other Generals thanks to his white top knot.

With a final push of Sonido, she leaped and aimed a slash of her claws at Zee’s back. The General disappeared briefly before reappearing before the beam of light. Zee walked into the pillar, followed by at least two dozen more Generals, paying her no heed. Cursing, Ajuga chased after him, determined not to let her prey escape again. Somewhere behind her, she heard Diaemus and Hana calling out a warning, but she didn’t bother turning around, too intent on sinking her claws into the General’s eye sockets to bother turning around. This was _her_ fight and she was going make sure the bastard that had starved her, beaten and broken her arm and Diaemus’s wings and chained her to his wall got what was coming to him.

White light surrounded her as she entered the pillar, blinding her with its radiance and making her eyes water. The ice and rubble under her hind paws disappeared as well. In fact, she felt weightless, almost as if she was floating and while she fought to try to keep her sense of equilibrium, she lost track of how much time passed. When gravity finally grabbed hold of her again, her sight returned with it and she found herself standing on cool marble.

For a second, when she heard nothing, she feared that she’d gone deaf, until she realized that she could no longer hear the sounds of the fight she’d just left. The only things she _could_ hear were the sighing of the wind as it occasionally gusted around her and her own breathing. There was no buzzing, no battle, no Cero explosions, no Zabimaru roaring. The absence of noise quickly led her to believe that she hadn’t arrived at any location belonging to the Swarm, or if it was, no one was present save for Zee and his escorts. In fact, the wind carried no other scents save for those of the Generals ahead of her, indicating that no one had been this way for a very long time.

_Where in the world am I?_

This place was unlike anything she had ever seen before. After spending time in the Hive, she could tell the Swarm certainly hadn’t had any hand in building this soaring architecture. Oddly, it reminded her a little of Aizen’s Palace, in the middle of the Seireitei, only far grander and gravity defying. Before her stood a shut and sealed gate. Zee’s scent went through it. Tail lashing slightly in the thrill of the hunt, Ajuga stalked forward towards the massive structure blocking her access to the city beyond it. Her hand rested on the gate, but it refused to budge no matter how hard she pushed on it. Staring up at its height, she pondered whether she ought to try climbing it, or trying to slash through it with her claws.

Then a shivery tingle shot up the arm attached to the hand she had on the gate, alarming her. Before she could let go, it swung open and after shaking herself, she dismissed the odd feeling. Placing both hands on it, she gave the gate a solid shove, and walked through it. She grinned, showing her fangs, then switched to Sonido, determined to catch up with Zee and his fellow Generals.

She did not notice the gate gently closing and locking behind her, already hot on Zee’s trail.

Hana’s stomach felt like someone had twirled her through the air, around and around, by her feet and then hung her upside down over a clothesline. That sensation followed her as she staggered out of the pillar, lurching from side to side and dizzy. A hand grasped her by her upper arm before she could fall on her face. The young Shinigami came face to face with an equally disoriented and slightly grey-faced Diaemus. The two managed to steady one another enough long enough to regain their bearings and for the floor to stop moving.

“What… what just happened? Where’s Ajuga?” Hana said, putting the palm of one hand to her temple and looking around with a mixture of wonder and apprehension. “And where did that thing take us?”

“Hana, this way! Hurry!”

Diaemus’s answer was to pull her towards a metallic gate, not far from the column of light. “Her scent is fresh. She must have just come through here!”

“I’m going to skin her, so help me!” Hana snapped as she marched angrily towards the barrier. “Single-minded, reckless, unthinking idiot! Is she _trying_ to get herself killed on purpose?”

“All appropriate adjectives, Hana. We’ll need to catch up with her for you to perform such a feat though,” her winged friend replied, though he sounded even less happy than she did.

She snorted and prepared to kick her way through the gate if she had to, or get Diaemus to carry her over it. However, when she touched the right side of the obstacle, it gave way under her fingertips and she received a shock through her hand, which she attributed to static electricity. The air _was_ somewhat dry. Sensing no resistance, she wriggled through to the other side and pushed it wider so that Diaemus could follow. When he’d cleared his wings, she closed the gate and tried to figure out which way Ajuga would have gone. Sighing, she pointed upwards and Diaemus took the hint. Maybe, with her searching on the ground and Diaemus looking for Ajuga from above, they’d locate her faster. Angry that, for the second time that day, they’d had to resort to searching for their foolhardy friend, Hana took what looked like the closest street and began running. She could hear Diaemus as he took off and attempted to catch the wind blowing through the spectacular, if deserted city. She had no idea where they were and if she managed to get her hands on her sister-all-but-in-name, Hana would do more than just skin her.

She swore that Ajuga’s punishment would involve math problems… preferably trigonometry. Maybe she’d even include some calculus if Ajuga couldn’t come up with a decent explanation for why she’d done something so incredibly foolish.

Her feet carried her down several alleyways and through numerous buildings, until she set foot in a very large courtyard. A marble fountain with three tiers that had once held water and now only held dirt and gravel stood at its center, its middle tier crumbling on one side. Unfortunately, Hana was so intent on deciding what kind of mathematical horrors she’d inflict on her friend that she failed to notice she wasn’t alone.

Three Generals stepped out from behind the ruined fountain and fanned out, intending to intercept her. She berated herself for forgetting that Zee hadn’t entered the gateway alone, and skidded to a halt. Bringing her hands up quickly, Hana fired off a blast of Kido.

“Sōkatsui!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. The blue shaft of energy shattered what was left of the stone fountain, sending the pieces everywhere. Hana took the opportunity to duck down a side corridor, while the three crouched in an attempt to shield themselves from the flying debris and the crackling electrical barbs. She’d meant it as a distraction at best. It wouldn’t take long for them to figure out where she’d gone and she hoped that she would be able to find Ajuga by then. Her thoughts grew darker by the second and she prayed Diaemus was having better luck than she was.

_Oh, yeah,_ she promised herself, _lots and lots and LOTS of math problems… HEAPS of them!_

Nothing thrilled Grimmjow more than a good, old-fashioned brawl, other than getting it on with Karin of course, but that was a thrill of a different sort. He would admit that Ulquiorra, when the bat chose to take the stick out of his hind end, made a decent bug-crushing partner. Despite decades of a bitter rivalry, the trip north proved that they could work well together. It had taken them less than the span of ten heartbeats to get the Swarm’s undivided attention. He’d felt a moment of hesitation when the giant ice mound erupted, but he soon spotted Karin and the others, safe and sound, before the spiky millipede-thing took him back into the fight. Maybe it was a centipede, but fuck it! Who cared? Szayel would probably twitch at the lack of distinction, but he couldn’t care less what it was, only that it was going to give him a good battle. He’d grown bored of swatting flies.

“Beware those spikes… at least until we know what they do,” Ulquiorra warned him, tossing a green Bala into a tangle of Locusts bearing down on him from the right, reducing the lot to cinders. “That steam is also suspect.”

“That’s just warm oxygen…” Grimmjow grunted, though he sniffed again to make sure. While the extra oxygen wasn’t harmful to breathe and had given them a bit of a boost, it did pose a different sort of danger. Accidentally igniting the gas around them with a stray Cero was a distinct possibility. The Sixth figured it might be a good idea to curb their energy-based attacks, lest they end up in the middle of a fireball of their own making. _‘Then again,’_ he reconsidered and grinned wickedly, _‘now would be an **excellent** time to let loose. Not like any explosions are really going to hurt us.’_ He was, after all, the Aspect of Destruction and nothing screamed ‘demolition on a large scale’ more than explosions with plenty of fuel behind them.

He tossed the idea aside for now. After all, he had no way of calculating how the increased oxygen in the air would affect such things, and Karin would haunt him for the rest of his life if he inadvertently killed her with one of his own Ceros. His life would also become devoid of sex as a side effect and he shuddered. Yeah, he decided, it would best to put that idea aside for now.

Ulquiorra shouted something to him, but it was impossible to hear his companion over the Swarm’s relentless buzzing. They might not be able to kill him with their claws, but Kami, they _were_ going to kill him with the noise. His ears were flat against his head and the position did little to mitigate it. His ears would annoy him all the way home if he and the Fourth didn’t find a way of reducing their numbers fast. It was driving him insane. Grimmjow thought it might be worse for Ulquiorra, what with those large ears and no way to cover them. Then again, bats tended to travel in large, screeching flocks, so perhaps the noise didn’t bother him at all. Hell, Grimmjow realized, his winged companion might even find it soothing. If the noise did bother Ulquiorra, the other gave no sign of it, firing Ceros and Bala at will and raking all four sets of claws across the carapaces of as many of the Locusts as he could.

Ignoring Ulquiorra for now, he leaped in close to the strange ‘porcu-peed’, determined to discover how tough the thing really was. The spikes shifted to meet him, and he brushed them carefully to determine their strength. For a moment, he thought that nothing had happened. Hell, the edge sliding against his arm hadn’t even hurt, not at first. He believed that his Hierro had either stopped the cut from happening, or that the edge hadn’t been that sharp to begin with, up until he looked down and saw blood oozing out from a long, thin rent in his armored forearm. His blue eyes squinted at the shallow injury.

_Mental note,_ he reconsidered. _Those spikes are dangerous. Stay away from them_.

Next, he used his _Desgarrón_. Despite the fact that it was an energy-based attack, the results were still quite physical and usually, very tangible. Large numbers of the Locusts perished as it tore through them and plunged into the ‘porcu-peed.’ When the ice dust settled, the tough, spiky shell was singed, but still intact. Grimmjow felt a feral grin spread across his face.

_Finally,_ he thought, _a_ _real_ _opponent_.

Ulquiorra shouted something at him again, but the infernal buzzing prevented him from hearing anything other than a vague exclamation. Karin suddenly flung a bright spike of pure panic his way. He’d been too preoccupied with the ‘porcu-peed’, and hadn’t noticed that most of the Locusts had scattered and regrouped. The majority of them were now barreling towards Karin and Ajuga, on the opposite side of the lake

“Fuck!” he cursed, sending another Desgarrón into the retreating ranks. The attack didn’t slow them down. Before he could disengage and try to make it there, the reinforcements they’d been waiting on for two whole days finally arrived. Grimmjow let out a breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding when he saw Starrk and Yammy’s pet holding the massive cloud of insects at bay and went back to trying to flay the monster below him.

Starrk appeared a few feet away, with his Resurrección fully released, which meant that Lilynette was here as well. Sure enough, he saw the misty wolf pack assemble, waiting for its orders.

“About time you showed up, slacker,” he taunted. Starrk yawned in response, but Grimmjow hadn’t really expected him to rise to the bait. The collective First eyed up the giant ‘porcu-peed’ instead, scanning the monstrosity for some kind of weakness. 'Porcu-peed' snarled up at them but was unable to reach them. The poor little darling had no wings with which to fly and they were too high off the ground for it to rear back. Ulquiorra flew over to them, wings beating the air to stay airborne.

“Your mate and daughter appear headed for trouble,” Ulquiorra called down to them, pointing his _Lanzo Verde_ down and to the left of the ruins of the Hive before he flew upwards to try hitting the humongous insect from a different angle. Grimmjow duly looked down, just in time to see his daughter dive in a pillar of light, the brightness swallowing the girl, tail and all. His nostrils flared in both outrage and astonishment as he recognized his child had adopted her favorite hunting stance, intent on killing something before she’d vanished. To make matters worse, he saw Hana and Diaemus plunge in after their friend, presumably to drag her back.

What the hell was that kid doing? There was no way to know what that thing was or where it went, or if there was even a way back. His eyes darted to Karin, who frantically raced after their daughter, Szayel by her side, or rather, lagging slightly behind her. His mate’s pet looked exhausted, which didn’t surprise Grimmjow. Aizen had probably run his forces ragged trying to get up here, only to find the battle already in progress. The only way the scientist would regain any of his strength was to do what Tesra had already done: enter his Resurrección and take the rejuvenation that went with the release of one’s powers.

_Huh. I wonder if he can pull off a full release, with that cracked mask of his. Nel sure as fuck didn’t last long after Nnoitra broke hers. Then again, she didn’t have a Claim holding her powers in place either. Still, doing so would put undue strain on the Claim and Karin ain’t that strong, reiatsu-wise. The last thing we need during a battle is Szayel regressing._

Starrk chose to speak up at that point, pointing his finger at the column of light.

“Go on. The Fourth and I will deal with this creature,” the First told him. It sounded less like an order and more like permission granted from a superior. Starrk outranked him, both as an Espada and in the pack, so he supposed that made sense from the other’s point of view, but it still felt Starrk had just dismissed him.

He wanted to protest and point out Diaemus and Hana had both just jumped into the pillar of light after Ajuga, probably to drag her out. There _was_ one good reason to go after them though, and its name was Zee. Wringing whatever the General used for a neck sounded like a great plan at that moment. Glancing back down at the ‘porcu-peed,’ and the light scorching his most powerful attack had done to it, he decided that it might be best to get revenge on the damn General instead and leave this creature to those more suited to figuring out its weak point. Besides, Szayel was no match for Zee, even if he was an Espada. He would be damned if the General got hold of his daughter again, or his mate.

However, Lilynette’s irritated snark, coming from the mouths of four misty, wolf-shaped Ceros that had congregated behind their master, was what got his feet moving

“Dammit Grimmjow! We didn’t come all this way to get Ajuga back just to lose her again!”

“Fuck it! I’m going!” he snarled, launching into a Sonido just as Karin and Szayel disappeared into the pillar of light.

He’d had to ditch the cloak when it became apparent that he had a choice: he could use his Bankai or he could let the multitude of Locusts that filled the air above the frozen lake overwhelm him. It wasn’t going to remain frozen for much longer if the giant thing lingering on the shore of the island that had housed the Swarm’s base didn’t stop dancing on it. Between the corpses piling up, the multiple cracks that Hitsugaya Toshiro had created to give Harribel access to more water than what her Resurrección could summon and the heavy creature trying to get at the three Espada harassing it from above, he expected it to cave in at any minute.

Maybe the thing would still be wearable once the bid to destroy the bugs’ nest was over. He’d glimpsed the half of the scouting party, with a thankfully whole Ajuga, that wasn’t involved in the fight, standing on the cliff where he’d dropped off Szayel. Nemu had already gone on ahead, or so he believed. It was a good thing, he supposed, that his Bankai, with its cowl of ape fur, provided the same sort of concealment for a small black cat as the cloak.

It did not, unfortunately, spare the wearer from the wrath of said feline. Renji winced at the loud, insistent yowl in his ear.

“What the hell, Yoruichi?” he hissed at the animal wrapped around his shoulders.

“You weren’t listening! We need to go after Karin!” Yoruichi all but shouted. “Down there! See the pillar?”

He growled in response. Of course, he could see the damned thing! Renji looked over at the tall, wide beam of white light the Scarabs had formed, just in time to see Karin and Szayel leap into it. When they failed to come out the other side, Renji’s heart nearly stopped. A Locust buzzed in front of him and he had to kick it out of the way, coating his left foot in bug guts.

_Are they crazy? Where the hell had they gone? Was that thing some kind of Senkaimon?_

“Quickly Renji! After her!” Yoruichi commanded and emphasized her point by digging a couple of claws into his shoulder. The redhead swore up a storm, adding a few phrases that involved selling off the cat on his back to a violinmaker to use her guts for strings before he disengaged the Swarm. He didn’t need any further prompting as he raced after the two idiots. Zabimaru got anything in his way out of the way as he half-ran, half-fell into the pillar, trailing the bone links of his Zanpakuto and the skull behind him.

_Damn you, Szayel!_ he cursed as he felt himself ‘free-fall’ and struggled to keep his grip on Zabimaru. _I told Vindula-chan and Abisara-kun I would get your pink ass home in one piece! Jumping into strange, glowing pillars is NOT going to help me keep that promise!_ He was going to tan Szayel’s hide when he caught up to him, no matter who was there to see it and this time it wouldn’t be because Aizen had forced him to do it. Provided, of course, that he survived this.

The portal was an interesting, blinding, gravity-flipping affair and he was thankful he hadn’t had more than a few bites of trail rations for breakfast. Otherwise, his stomach might have tossed his meager meal back up. He let go of his Bankai and felt Zabimaru lurch in his grip as it returned to its normal state, along with the rest of his garb.

Coming to a less-than-elegant landing on a floor made of very hard marble, he gaped up at the floating islands of the Royal Palace in stunned silence, before getting to his feet.

“Renji…” came a voice at his elbow and he jumped instinctively, nearly beheading Nemu with his still-drawn weapon as she suddenly materialized beside him. Renji quickly sheathed his Zanpakuto. Nemu bowed before she turned and took off through a pair of gates that someone had left wide open.

“My apologies, Renji. Szayel summoned me. We should try to catch up to him and to Karin-san,” she called back urgently. He nodded in agreement and started to pursue her before he remembered that he hadn’t come here alone.

“Yoruichi? Hey! Yoruichi!”

He looked over his shoulder, only to find the feline had up and deserted him, slinking off to Kami-knew-where. “Damn it!” he cursed, and ran down the path Karin and Szayel had taken, trying to keep up with Nemu. Somewhere ahead of them, they could hear a fight that involved a lot of snarling and the sound of breaking masonry and more than one explosion. “If you get your ass capped, I swear I will force you to use that stupid, Resurrección of yours so I can kill you again!” he snarled.

Aizen watched the battle with a sense of satisfaction. Thanks to the work that Ulquiorra and Grimmjow had begun, he was certain his forces would be victorious. While the Swarm had numbers on its side, that advantage continued to dwindle as the minutes ticked by. Harribel and Toshiro were doing quite a bit of damage to the remains of the Swarm’s aerial forces and the only thing that had taken him aback was the admittedly impressive creature that had surfaced from the lower levels of the Swarm’s nest. He had no idea what it was, nor did he really care to know. Once his Espada and their pets had dealt with it, he’d order it dissected and he could inspect it at his leisure.

The only thing that did concern him was the pillar of light created by the circle of Scarabs. Now that he’d seen the things in action, he had a better idea of what they were attempting. They’d created a gateway, one that required more than just a pair of Scarabs to construct.

He found that intriguing. Perhaps they were trying to bring in another insect contingency to challenge him. As none of the Swarm showed signs of retreating, he doubted that the Scarabs had meant it to be a means of evacuation to their own Realm. Taking a step back and tapping his lip with one finger, he considered other possibilities, surveying the various insects’ actions. The Cockroaches and the Beetles had ringed the Scarabs, presumably to provide the Scarabs protection while they made their gateway, but the way that the Locusts had targeted the scouting party gave him pause. Compared to the two Espada raining down death and destruction on the Hive, the less-powerful group of women and Ulquiorra’s son would pose a lesser threat, though he conceded that he was looking at things from a slightly different perspective. Who knew how a hive-mind rationalized things? They did have Ajuga with them, which provided a partial explanation, though not a complete one. He could wait until they returned to the Seireitei to interrogate the girl, to see if there was some rational reason behind the abduction.

He could see no sign of the Generals, but from the reports, he knew they rarely took the front lines, preferring to issue orders from the safety of cover. A logical tactic, one he himself favoured. Still, this was the Swarm’s nerve center in this Realm and if the leaders were not here, it begged the question: where had they’d gone? If they’d already conceded the field, why keep the gateway up? Did they plan to return for some reason?

Then he regarded the gateway itself. If the typical Swarm invasion only required two Scarabs to move an attack force the great distance between this isolated lake in the far north and the Seireitei itself, what sort of destination would require the use of so many Scarabs? The answer, of course, would be one that needed a large amount of energy to access, one that would be difficult to reach under normal circumstances.

Aizen’s mouth thinned and his eyes narrowed.

The known ‘locations’ on that list were few and the glimmering pillar _did_ look a great deal like the gateway to the Royal Realm he’d created with the O-ken. It ‘felt’ the same way as well, though why the Swarm would create a gateway there of all places escaped him.

The Swarm having access to the Royal Realm, if not the Palace itself didn’t exactly bother Aizen as much as it puzzled him. They could not take the Spirit King’s Throne from him without an Heir unless they killed him. The likelihood that an Heir existed among the Swarm was also laughably low. Nevertheless, he decided that it would probably be best to eliminate the Scarabs and shut the portal down, just to be on the safe side. He didn’t leave back doors open, as a rule and saw no need to leave one unsecured now.

“Stay here and heal those of my forces who need it,” Aizen said absently to the human woman hanging back behind him. Ulquiorra’s pet was no warrior and he hadn’t meant her to engage the Swarm with the others, but it would be wise if she made herself useful while he dealt with this minor issue. She nodded briskly, which he barely registered before taking the field himself.

To say he encountered resistance would be an understatement, but he hardly needed to draw his Zanpakuto to deal with it. Every Locust in the sky chose that moment to try for him and he had to admit he found it refreshing, and maybe even flattering, that the enemy recognized him as a power worthy of fear. If they wanted to stop him at all costs, they were welcome to try. They were also welcome to perish in the attempt.

Aizen started to make his way towards the Scarabs, letting the force of his reiatsu tear a path through the Swarm and through the streams of acid that the beetles shot at him. None of it landed on him, the stuff evaporating before it touched his person. They seemed determined to keep him from getting to the gateway, which only fuelled his resolve to get through their defensive lines and dispel it. Then he paused, as a flash of pink overhead made him look up, peering through the shifting clouds of Locusts. He caught a glimpse of Karin and Szayel as the two flung themselves into the gateway. Interestingly, the tank-like insects seemed oblivious to their presence.

Now, that was curious and only fuelled his suspicions as he Shunpo’ed out of the way of another jet of acid. The liquid accidentally took out several Locusts closing in on him from behind. Aizen frowned, wondering if the insects’ current focus on getting to him, or preventing him from getting to the Scarabs had anything to do with the fact that they’d all but ignored the human woman and her pet.

Szayel was intelligent, and he _had_ been collaborating with Unohana for some time over biological matters, such as the surge in hybrid pregnancies. He wouldn’t put it past the scientist to have found a way to clone Unohana’s genes or snitch a blood sample from her, giving the Espada access to the Royal Realm. Did he think he had a chance at assuming the Throne himself, using such a tactic? A large part of him _hoped_ Szayel had taken the risk. Finally, his favourite toy would have made a mistake great enough earn him a permanent spot in Aizen’s dungeon, allowing him to use Szayel as he wished. Such a crime would also keep the other Espada from questioning the sentence. Starrk had been particularly… uppity of late when it came to his ‘pack,’ but a charge of treason would silence even the Primera’s protests as to his treatment of the slippery Arrancar.

A much smaller, more paranoid portion of his brain brought up a different possibility: that Szayel had figured out a way of not only taking the Throne, but also unravelling all of the complex changes Aizen had undergone in his quest to assume control of the Realms. The same, uneasy voice had led him to force Szayel to his knees, in all sorts of positions over the years, in an effort to break the Arrancar to his will and keep the scientist from ever questioning Aizen’s authority over his person.

That particular chance was remote, but still real and he had not attained what he had over the years by engaging in faulty risk assessment. Allowing such an oversight to slide simply would not do. Checking out the situation himself seemed prudent.

He turned his eyes from the pillar and took in the status of the conflict, strangling any of the enemy that came near him with his reiatsu. The rest of his Espada and their pets had things under control, despite the number of troops the Swarm had on the field. They hardly needed him to supervise the squashing of insects. In fact, he was positive that, by the time he got back, all that would need doing involved a bit of healing and some mopping up.

Toshiro and Harribel, with all the water, snow and ice around them were doing their best to speed up what Aizen hoped was the extinction of a ten-year thorn in his side. There were only two other warriors who showed the same level of efficiency, thanks to the wide range of their respective weapons. The first was Barragan. The walking skeleton strode through a black cloud of Locusts, wielding Respira and they decayed and dissolved around him. The other was Byakuya, whose Senbonzakura chopped any who came close to the noble into pieces. Ulquiorra, Grimmjow and Starrk had taken on the behemoth that resembled a mutated millipede…

… except that when the smoke from the latest rounds of Ceros had cleared, the Sixth was nowhere to be seen.

Had the Espada fallen? Aizen cast his eyes downward, looking for the telltale electric blue that would reveal Grimmjow’s location if he had been hurt. When he couldn’t find it, he began searching. It wasn’t in the Sixth’s nature to run from a fight. The more he looked, the more he realized that the Espada wasn’t the only one for which he couldn’t account. The tattooed oaf and his distinctive Zanpakuto were silent and while she was a much smaller creature to track, Nemu had disappeared as well.

Something wasn’t right. All of the missing had a connection of one kind or another to Szayel and Aizen wasn’t a big believer in coincidences.

He turned back to the pillar, his suspicions growing and marched towards it, intent on finding out exactly what was going on. At the very least, he could punish Szayel, as well as his pets, for desertion. He could even think of it as an unexpected bonus.

One corner of Aizen’s mouth quirked up at the idea and it grew into an anticipatory smile.


	56. Bloodlines Revealed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shit hits the turbine

Karin stared at the gate that blocked their path. Szayel had already tried to open it while she quickly pinned down everyone’s location with her sight. Ajuga had followed Zee and Hana and Diaemus had followed Ajuga, but both had meet resistance in the form of Zee’s entourage. They had to get to the three young fools quickly before anything else went wrong.

“Perhaps you would be so kind as to grant us access, Karin-sama?”

“What?” she looked at him in confusion. Szayel gave her an exasperated look in return.

“The gate is obviously coded to only allow entrance to those with Royal blood, or anyone who may happen to have a key such as the one Aizen used to gain initial entry. Considering I lack both, you’ll have to be the one to open it.”

Karin made a face, but pushed against the gate anyway. At first, it refused to budge, but after a moment and a sensation in her arms not unlike sticking her finger in an electrical outlet, it swung open. The way ahead was clear and she raced after the children. She could hear the fight up ahead and did her best to ignore the brown splashes of very old blood that stained the almost pristine Palace floors and walls.

“Help Hana and Diaemus,” she told him. “I’ll get to Ajuga.”

Szayel drew Fornicaras and obeyed, although he did grouch about it. Combat was not really his thing. Karin ducked past one General that had turned to engage them before ploughing her fist through a second, feeling a moment of satisfaction as its carapace exploded like a popped water balloon. She could ‘see’ Ajuga ahead of her, fighting with Zee and Diaemus in the air, engaged in a vicious aerial battle. Blinking, she let go of her ‘sight’ long enough to see the two combatants collide with the roof of the closest building. Broken roof tiles rained down on the marble street as they picked themselves up and shot back into the air in a flurry of wings, claws and Diaemus’s bared fangs.

Exasperation and worry slammed into her via her Claim from her mate and she whirled around to ‘see’ Grimmjow’s reiatsu as he entered the dimension. That relieved her, as she did not want to face Zee alone. Her mate wasn’t the only one. A minute after Grimmjow entered and used Sonido to blow through the gates she’d left wide open, Renji stumbled out of the pillar, followed by Nemu and… was that Yoruichi? The three were coming in close behind her and Szayel, while Grimmjow made a beeline for his daughter and the General.

What in the world was one of the Escapees doing here, she wondered. The answer to that would have to wait until they had Ajuga firmly in hand. Karin took off again in pursuit of her daughter, intent on using her ‘sight’ to track the girl before Zee could hurt her again.

What occurred was far, far worse. To her utter horror, Karin ‘saw’ Zee latch on to Ajuga and lift her away from him, trying to elude the girl’s front and rear claws. Before she could do anything, before she could reach the two, the General swung Ajuga around and threw her daughter as hard as he could through the remains of a decorative, latticework wall, straight into the only piece of furniture in the room.

With that, all of Karin’s worst fears came to life.

Ajuga stalked down the corridors and alleyways, tracking the General. He hadn’t even bothered to hide his scent. It was almost as if he was mocking her with it, since the trail was leading straight down the middle of each hall. The arrogant bastard probably didn’t think he needed to worry about anyone tracking him or trying to stop him. Brownish stains on the wall broke up the almost pure white decor. A sniff confirmed the blood was old. Judging by some of the damage she could see, the battle that had taken place had been particularly gruesome.

_What is this place and why is the General here?_ she pondered for a few seconds, before she resumed her trek deeper into the confusing array of buildings and courtyards. Finally, she found herself before a truly impressive structure. It reminded her of Aizen’s Palace, if someone stripped it bare of all of the lovely things inside and bleached the stone as white as snow. According to her nose, Zee had gone inside not all that long ago and she flexed her claws as she followed, giving herself over to the hunt.

_Gotcha cornered now, you overgrown grasshopper,_ she thought with a nasty smirk. _Put a collar on me, will ya?_

She edged around a large, marble atrium with an empty pond in the middle and then hurried down yet another corridor, then another, some smaller and some wider than others. After a few minutes of this confusing ‘round and round’ circling, Ajuga stopped at the intersection of two hallways, sniffing the air and then each of the three other directions. Zee’s scent lingered in all of them and she paused, trying to figure out which way the General had really gone and hissed in frustration, raking her dark hair out of her eyes.

_Did he double back on his tracks? Seems like it…_

Without warning, the corner behind her exploded, causing her to jump just in time to block the grab Zee made for her. Cursing, she darted backwards, bringing her arms up to defend herself. They deflected the attack, but Zee was quick to make a grab for her instead.

“Enough playing nice. You will sit on the chair. You _will_ say my name and the Realms will balance, you insolent child!” Zee shouted furiously, tossing her through the break in the wall he’d just made to land on marble floors covered in old, iron-dark, flaking blood. The thin, dried film crackled and fluttered like confetti in the air around her as Ajuga encountered it. The stuff got into her nose and all over her fur. On reflex, she sank her hind claws into the soft stone below her, allowing her to halt the skid before she slid into the opposite wall. She then angled her body back towards him, crouching like a tightly wound coil. He’d come after her into the immense room, through the breach in the wall, raining dust and grit after him.

“Fuck you dead, you maggot!” she snarled back, rising to her feet and throwing herself at him, claws and fangs bared with the intent to shred him into itty bitty ribbons.

They exchanged blows and her claws left several rake marks on his carapace, but didn’t go much deeper than that. She did land a beautiful kick squarely in his chest, making him stagger back a few steps, but he eluded the swipe she made to his legs. Zee finally got a hold of her once more, and with another snarl and a windup, he tossed her across the room. He threw her so hard that she smashed completely through a thin, ivory screen that some long-ago artist had carved into a decorative pattern. Her back connected with something painfully solid and she slumped down, arms and legs gone numb with the force of the impact. When her head cleared, she discovered her body partially draped across a very large, ornately carved chair, one leg tossed over one of the armrests and her right arm hooked over the other. Her painfully kinked tail and back had taken the brunt of her landing and Ajuga barely kept from hissing when she tried to move. Then she could see Zee kick the rest of the screen down, intending to finish whatever he’d started.

_Gotta move… c’mon you stupid body, we gotta move_! she thought and tried to pry herself off of the chair, only to curl back into it in alarm and cover her head as the ceiling in the middle of the room collapsed, bringing tiles, splintered timbers and chunks of marble down on whatever lay below. What was left of the screen disappeared beneath the rubble and dust.

The roof’s cave-in caused Zee to jump back to keep from being crushed. Ajuga gaped in shock as another General hit the pile of debris face-first, its thin, membranous wings in tatters. On top of him, his ebony wings beating furiously as he reached out and grasped a thick chunk of marble and then crushed the insect’s head was…

“Diaemus!” she gasped, unaware he had followed her through the portal. He and Hana must have shadowed her and had taken on the other Generals that she’d seen accompany Zee into this insane place. No wonder she’d only had Zee as opponent, rather than having to worry about more than one enemy coming after her. Diaemus, breathing hard, tried to shake some of the ichor from his hands as he sat up, a rare look of satisfaction at a bug well killed on his face, and turned to address her in a sarcastic tone.

“Yes Ajuga, as usual you…”

Diaemus never finished. Freezing in mid-sentence, as if someone had grabbed his throat and squeezed, his green eyes went wide and rolled back and his mouth hung open as he cried out in shock.

Zee roared something in his own tongue, garbled words that blistered the very air with thwarted outrage.

Ajuga shrieked as well, from the rush of unexpected inundation of raw power that threatened to crush her as it poured into her from every direction. It hurt worse than anything she’d ever felt before, including her broken arm, as it burned its way through every cell in her body. She saw light envelop Diaemus through the narrow, tear-filled slits her eyes became before surrounded her too. Her childhood companion let out an agonized gasp as he went completely rigid, and then crumpled, passing out on top of the General he had just killed. The surge of energy ended almost as quickly as it began and Ajuga panted for breath, her fur standing on end.

She felt odd, as if she hung, suspended in a dark room, watching scene after scene, millions of them happening at the same time, from every angle, and the effect was terribly disorienting. Nausea hit her as her vision kept wavering from vision to vision. Ajuga tried to dispel it by latching on to just one thing, lest the multitude of shifting locations and perspectives force her to lose the meat she’d eaten earlier. Finally, she managed to get her eyes under control, to focus on only this room, in the here and now…

“Well, that was unexpected.”

A vaguely familiar, masculine voice spoke up breaking the stunned silence.

Ajuga turned her head to find a black cat sitting calmly not too far away, its tail moving back and forth across a bare spot in the middle of the wreckage. She drew a blank as she stared into its intelligent, yellow eyes before she recalled flushing a similar animal out of its hiding place in the shrubbery of Byakuya’s garden, back when she had still been a wide-eyed cub. She had almost forgotten the incident. Now that she was older, she knew enough to associate the creature with the description beneath a picture of an athletic dark-skinned woman with violet hair, the one that featured the words ‘armed’ and ‘dangerous’ in the wording. Ajuga still saw it on the occasional poster plastered to a wall or pinned to a post throughout the Seireitei. Shihoin Yoruichi, ringleader of those who dared thumb their noses at Kami’s rule, stared back at her with a ‘now what?’ expression and twitched her whiskers.

“Ajuga, what have you done?”

A devastated whisper from the doorway made her tear her eyes away from the cat and to her mother, who stood transfixed, staring at Ajuga with a look of absolute horror on her face. Her father arrived a second later and launched himself straight at Zee. The General brought up both arms and blocked the attack, but the insect strained under the power of the Espada’s strike. Hana scampered in after the Espada, turned and brought her hands up just in time to throw a Kido barrier up, enough to ward off a blow from one of the Generals chasing her.

Then Hana’s opponent went flying from a kick placed on its hind end by a tabi-covered foot. The General ended up face-first in a pile of roof tiles and timbers. Hana recovered enough to send a Kido blast after it and more green guts slathered the wreckage as a result.

Renji, Nemu and Szayel arrived on her father’s heels, each of them separating to take on the rest of the Generals that had flooded into the room through a far entrance that Ajuga hadn’t noticed. Their drawn Zanpakuto, dripping green sludge, implied they had already dealt with several of Zee‘s companions on the way here.

“What is done is done, Hollow!” Zee responded nastily. “Your daughter chose that pathetic half-breed as her Consort instead of me, as I told her to do.”

He clutched at one arm with the other, proof that Grimmjow had done more damage to the lead General than met the eye. When he spoke again, Ajuga could hear the resentment and seething anger in his voice. “The pretender will soon come for them. My forces will not hold him back much longer. I suggest you restore the balance between our Realms before the damage grows any greater, before it is too late to save either!”

“What?” her father demanded, pausing long enough to stare at her before turning a furious gaze towards the slowly recovering Diaemus. Zee took that opportunity to escape, her father hardly even noticing as his prey got away. The few Generals still in the room turned and fled with him. When Renji moved to pursue them, Nemu grabbed his free arm and shook her head.

Ajuga had hardly heard her father’s exclamation over her own.

“I did _what_?”

The look of horror that appeared on Diaemus’ face as Zee’s words sank in matched hers. Yoruichi seemed amused, if Ajuga read her tail’s movements correctly. Her mother, on the other hand, looked about ready to have a coronary. The only one who looked more terrified than her mother was a ragged-looking Szayel, who kept looking over his shoulder.

“Well, I guess that cat is out of the bag,” Hana sighed, sounding oddly relieved.

Karin watched in despair as her carefully constructed world crumbled. It only intensified as Aizen’s angry, overpowering reiatsu flared to life in the vicinity of the gate. Szayel picked up on it too and what little color he had drained from his face as he turned to her. She, in turn, looked at Yoruichi. The cat had picked its way around the mess on the floor to sit atop a nearby pile of rubble and wood.

“Yoruichi, I am not going to ask how you got here. All I care about is whether you can get us out of here?” she asked the cat brokenly. The cat blinked at her and looked away.

“No,” Yoruichi confessed. “We’re a bit far from my normal ‘short-cuts.’ But we have a little time…”

“No we don’t!” Karin almost shouted. “Didn’t you hear him? Aizen is at the gate of the Royal Realm! We need to escape now!”

The others stared at her and then back towards the entrance. Aizen must have been cloaking his reiatsu, intending to take whomever he found here by surprise. By now, he would have understood that someone had stolen the Throne from him and she didn’t think he’d be too pleased about that.

“Szayel!” she turned his way. “Is there any way you can…”

“Nemu darling, get the device ready, quickly!” he called to his mate, who pushed up her left sleeve and hiked up her already short skirt to expose the upper portion of her right thigh. Karin stared as she pressed a spot on both limbs and retrieved two small cubes from both ‘hiding places.’ The scientist gave his Mistress a faint, sickly smile.

“I’d just finished the prototype of the portable device we spoke of when Kami decided to haul me into the godforsaken wilderness. As the members of my Division have a tendency towards unhealthy curiosity and because I dislike coming home to find I need to scrape what remains of the less agile ones from the ceiling, I brought the pieces with us for safekeeping.”

“You mean you don’t know if it will work or not?”

“I am ninety-seven percent sure it will function properly on the first go. Contrast that with being only sixty-percent sure that Abarai would be able to assemble it on the third try. You see my quandary, right Karin-sama? If only I’d had time to come up with something simpler…”

“Not funny, Szayel!” she heard Renji snark, before Nemu waved away his attempts to help her. Karin bit her lip and remained silent as Szayel’s mate extracted several thin rods from each of the cubes, connecting them together to form a large polygon anchored to a low tripod on the floor.

“What I am one-hundred percent certain of is that I did not have the time necessary to include a ‘self-destruct’ program, or a way to shut it down and scramble the memory,” he warned, sounding upset and Karin felt her hopes sink that they’d all be able to make it out of the Throne room unscathed.

Another potentially violent drama played out a few feet away.

“Consort?” Grimmjow spluttered and glared at Diaemus. “What do you mean ‘Consort?’”

“Umm,” Ajuga hesitated and then held up her hands. “Wait, what’s going on here? I sure as hell did not mate with Diaemus! That’s just… gross! When would we have even found the time in the first place? Zee’s just messing with you, Papa,” she told her father, trying to get through to him. Unfortunately, Grimmjow didn’t look as if was buying her explanation. Thankfully, the cat chose to speak up before the Espada could get his claws on her friend.

“Congratulations Ajuga-chan, on becoming the new Spirit King, or should I say, _Queen_. Choosing an official Consort is one of the stipulations that come with assuming the Throne… in addition to having the proper bloodlines, of course. You clearly choose Diaemus, when you sat down on the Throne and spoke his name” Yoruichi informed her, “and he accepted. I believe there was a ‘Yes, Ajuga,’ if my ears haven’t betrayed me.”

Ajuga finally managed to push herself off the marble chair, standing on wobbly legs. She wanted to shake her head and deny it, and tried to remember exactly what she’d said in addition to what Diaemus had said to land them in this position. She hadn’t done it deliberately, but the ache in her brain told her that, deliberate or not, she might be stuck with it.

Diaemus’s current pallor rivalled his father’s as he tried to get up. That murderous look was back in the Sixth’s eyes as he glared at the boy. Karin ignored the two as best she could as Nemu finished setting up the device. Consort or not, they had to escape. They had to run and keep on running if they wanted to live. If Aizen caught them, he would slaughter Ajuga and Diaemus and steal the Throne again…

_…unless he has a reason to let them go, even if only for a while,_ she thought miserably. There were several choices before her, all of them bad. Karin swallowed a sob as she picked the only one of the bunch that might allow the children and her family to escape the death marching furiously towards them.

She forced Szayel to her side via the Claim, putting her hand on his shoulder and leaning in. There was a hint of confusion, for she seldom used the Claim against him, and definitely never like this, but most of what she was getting from him was fear. There was no way that Aizen would believe Szayel hadn’t known about their bloodline once he came upon them. What awaited the Espada after that would make everything he’d suffered so far look like a garden party. Renji and Nemu would also be forfeit, as would his children.

“Do you have a strong sedative?”

She whispered this as softly as possible, hoping her mate was sufficiently distracted to keep him from noticing the numbness forming in her gut.

“Yes,” he answered, as if affronted that she would believe otherwise. He jerked his chin at his mate as she clicked the final piece in place before moving to Szayel’s side. Karin watched as Nemu opened up her forearm again and extracted a thin syringe, handing it discreetly to the scientist.

“Good. Use it on Grimmjow. He won’t leave otherwise. Take the others to my brother. Tell them what happened,” she told him. His eyes widened as he realized her intent. She clamped down on the Claim, forcing him to remain silent about his observation and to act. Grimmjow was just bearing down on Diaemus, the boy still in a state of shock and lying on the floor, when Szayel buzzed behind him and promptly stuck the needle directly into his neck.

“Szayel! What... the… fu...”

That was as far as her mate got before he collapsed. He also let go of his Resurrección state. Szayel immediately caught Grimmjow, uttering ‘oof’ as he staggered under the Sixth’s greater weight. He motioned for Renji, who looked as if he’d been about to step in and grab Diaemus.

“It won’t last long,” came Szayel’s strained confession. “He’ll bounce back in four, maybe five minutes at most. Anything stronger and he wouldn’t wake up at all.”

“What’s going on?” Ajuga demanded, rushing to her father’s side. “Why the hell would you do that Szay?”

“Because Aizen’s coming to kill you, Ajuga,” Karin told her daughter. “You somehow assumed the Throne and took the power of the Spirit Ruler away from him. Aizen won’t rest until you are dead… if he doesn’t rape a child out of you first _before_ he kills you. What do you think he’s been doing to Unohana-Taichou all these years?”

A look of horror crossed Ajuga’s face as her mother’s brutal honesty hit her. Karin didn’t want to be so harsh but this was no time to coddle her daughter. They had a very real predator stalking them now and Ajuga would need time to learn how to harness her new abilities, whatever they might be.

If she could give her child that time, then so be it.

“You mean…”

“Yes,” she replied, her voice growing harder. “Your grandfather, my father, was one of the Spirit King’s sons. So before Aizen gets here to kill you and take his Throne back, you are all leaving.”

“Wait, what about Vindula-chan and Abisara-kun?” Renji protested as Szayel handed off Grimmjow’s dead weight to him. “I thought we were going back to the Seireitei to get them! We can’t leave them behind! Aizen will go after them to get to us!”

Karin hesitated, but in reality, they had no way of retrieving the twins and they were almost out of time. Aizen would arrive in less than a minute. If the usurper caught them, it would be over. If they left now, there still might be a chance to get to them later. Unfortunately, the redhead didn’t seem to want to listen to reason, because he took two steps in her direction, his face a mask of fury and his fists clenched.

“I am not leaving them!” Renji snarled at her, tossing her mate over his shoulder. She ground her teeth and narrowed her eyes angrily, hating what she knew she had to do next. If the fool wouldn’t willingly listen to her, she’d have to force him.

“You will go with the others to the Living Realm and help get my mate and my daughter to Ichigo. This is a direct order from me and _you will not disobey me in this!_ ” she practically shouted. Renji’s eyes went wide as his body stopped moving, Nel’s Claim gripping him so tightly that he almost stopped breathing.

Szayel’s mate pulled a sliver-thin rectangle of metal from the side of the closest rod on the device and placed one finger on its surface. The inside of the rectangle lit up, forming a screen.

“Coordinates, Szayel-sama?”

The stricken Espada appeared to draw a blank before he gave Yoruichi a helpless look. The cat padded up to the Nemu and rattled off some numbers that sounded like latitude and longitude coordinates. Nemu tapped the screen a few times and the device flared to life. The air within the boundaries of the rods before them subsequently ripped apart, revealing a gapping, black maw opening up into parts unknown. Karin had never seen a Garganta before, but recognized it from the descriptions she’d heard over the years from others.

“Go, keep them safe. Find a way to kill Aizen. It should be easier now that he has lost the Throne,” she ordered Szayel, resting a hand on his shoulder as she did so. “You have about six months to figure it all out, but I have faith you can do it.”

She poured every bit of power she had as quickly as she could into recasting Szayel’s Claim. It would have to last or he would start regressing quickly if it faded and Karin couldn’t allow that to happen. Grimmjow groaned, already starting to stir in Renji’s grip. She had no doubt about what Aizen was going to do to her, and her throat went dry in terror before she swallowed to wet it again. Grimmjow would be furious with her, but at least he would be alive.

“Tell him I am sorry, that I love him, and try to stop him from doing anything rash that will just get him killed.”

“No promises on that last one,” Szayel answered weakly. Karin gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze before she dropped her hand to her side.

“I will try and keep Vindula-chan and Abisara-kun safe. I can promise you that much at least.”

Szayel grabbed hold of Nemu’s hand, drawing her away from the controls.

“I don’t want to leave Mama,” Ajuga cried, rushing to her and clutching at her arm. Hana had pulled a shaken Diaemus up from the rubble and towed him towards the Garganta, then looked over her shoulder at the other girl.

“Go!” Karin pleaded, her terror now plain. “Szayel and Yoruichi will explain everything to you on the other side. Please, _please_ Ajuga… please don’t make me watch Aizen kill you!”

“We’re leaving!” Szayel barked and pointed with one finger towards the cat. “Follow her!”

Yoruichi promptly hopped through the Garganta. Hana, wiser than her friend, trotted the few short steps necessary and grabbed Ajuga by the wrist, hauling her through the portal. Her face was set in a grim mask and she didn’t look back. Diaemus stumbled after them, the boy clearly still in shock over everything he had learned. If she got out of this, Karin vowed to ask Nanao’s daughter how she knew so damn much. Nemu was the next one to hurry through, followed by Szayel and Renji as the two of them fled through the portal together. Renji’s entire posture radiated his barely-contained rage and his eyes held nothing but contempt for her as he gave her one last ugly look. Karin did not blame him, but letting him stay behind would be to sentence him to a swift death if he were lucky.

She watched them go, fighting back tears. All her efforts to protect her family’s secrets, all of the subterfuge and their carefully laid plans… all of it had been wasted. Grimmjow finally stirred from his perch on Renji’s shoulder. He managed to lift his head enough so that his blurred, blue eyes met hers before he disappeared.

“I love you,” she whispered.

Filling both of her hands with reiatsu, she immediately destroyed the device with three carefully placed Kido blasts. The Garganta fizzled out and closed as it disintegrated. She shielded her eyes as the input screen and the thin rods shattered into pieces almost too tiny to see, rendering it useless and her family untraceable. The wind, blowing through the hole that Diaemus and the General had created during their fight, scattered them throughout the debris.

Silence descended on the chamber, broken only by the sound of her breathing. She wiped the tears on her face away with the heel of her hand, pushing her spectacles out of the way for a second to do so.

“They’re gone,” she said aloud, in as calm a voice as she could manage, “and you won’t find them.”

“Indeed,” Aizen said, appearing in the gap in the wall Ajuga and Zee had created, with his arms folded across his chest, before he climbed through it. “I seem to have just missed them. What a pity.”

He looked about, taking in the corpses of the Generals, the puddles of fresh ichor mixing with the old, dried blood on the floor and the woman standing in the middle of it all. The ex-Shinigami clucked his tongue, the disapproving ‘tch’ noise echoing off the walls.

“I should have expected Royal Blood flowed through your veins. Your father was a member of the Shiba clan after all, one of the Five Great Noble Houses before having their power revoked for transgressions against the Seireitei. I should have thought to check your bloodline.”

“No. That’s where you’re wrong.” She shook her head, unable to believe she was deliberately baiting Aizen like this, but she knew of no other way to stall him. “My father was the youngest son of the late King. The name ‘Shiba Isshin’ was just a cover to hide his heritage. The Spirit King you murdered to gain the Throne was my grandfather.”

Karin finally turned to face him, just in time to see him school his features, wiping away the look of surprise. She was probably one of the few who had ever seen that particular expression on his face. The great and powerful Aizen, she knew, didn’t like bombshells, but that was just too damn bad, she told herself.

“There is no point in wasting energy trying to kill Ajuga until you have what you need. You know as well as I do that the Realms were becoming increasingly unstable with you on the Throne.”

“True,” he agreed and marched towards her, intent on grabbing her. Before he could, she continued speaking in a tone that carried a coldly worded warning.

“Szayel didn’t betray you here. Grimmjow never held his Claim. _I_ do. I Claimed him the day my brother attacked him and he regressed. It is something I learned I could do by touch. I actually practiced it on Tesra, with Nnoitra’s permission.”

She didn’t know if Aizen would believe her, but she had to try, even if all she accomplished was to put enough doubt about Szayel’s actions in his head, to spare Abisara and Vindula if she could. There was one other reason to give up such information, and she watched in satisfaction as he hesitated, meaning that he understood the threat her ability posed. The fact Tesra and Nnoitra were both here, and could confirm it, helped.

“Any Claim you cast on me won’t last,” he pointed out.

“No, it would not,” she agreed, before her tone grew even harsher. “However, the question you _should_ be asking is not how _long_ my Claim would last, but how _fast_ I can force you to kill yourself.”

Aizen raised one eyebrow at her declaration, but he did take a polite step back and offered her a thin smile, an acknowledgement of a well-played move. It would appear that her gamble had worked. She’d bought herself some much-needed time while intriguing the cutthroat tactician she knew lurked beneath his smooth exterior.

“Hmm… and so here you stand, attempting to keep me occupied while the others run like the mice they are. I must confess… in all my years, I have seldom come across such an amusing opponent. Once more I find myself lamenting that I paid more attention to your brother when you are, by far,” he chuckled in good humour, raising his hands and giving her small round of applause, “the more _interesting_ Kurosaki sibling.”

She didn’t return the smile, staring stonily at him as he sighed and clasped his hands behind his back.

“Very well, Karin-chan. I will spare your family _until_ you produce an Heir for me. Given your lineage and the fact that your daughter kindly allowed me to shed a not-insignificant amount of power, I’m certain that won’t take terribly long.” He smirked and sauntered up to her, leaning down so that his mouth was close to her ear. “And when I have what I want, I think I’ll keep you around. I’m sure you’ll be quite… entertaining,” he whispered.

Fear clenched at her heart as he said this, even though this was the best possible outcome that she could hope for. If she could fend off Aizen long enough, her family and friends would be safe. She had no illusions that threatening him with a Claim would keep him away forever. He would find a way around it or call her bluff. After all, she had confessed that she held Szayel’s Claim, and she didn’t dare risk letting that weaken.

“Come, Karin-chan. The sooner we get back to my Palace, the sooner we can enjoy this new game of cat-and- mouse you seem so eager to play. I look forward to manipulating you into my bed and partaking of your body… I’d like to see exactly what Grimmjow has raved about all these years.”

Karin couldn’t help the shiver that raced up her spine, but she would be damned if she would show him any sort of weakness. Instead, she forced herself to walk past him, her back straight and eyes ahead. Aizen drew his Zanpakuto as they walked through the gates, closing them behind them and re-securing the Realm once more. They arrived on the battlefield, the ground thick with the bodies of the dead. The Scarabs scattered as they came through and the portal vanished. Aizen slaughtered the lot of them with his blade in the time it took Karin to blink. The giant ‘porcu-peed’ lay twitching in death, half of its long body encased in ice and the other half missing the majority of its lethal spikes. The battle was over, and the others walked up to Aizen, returning to their normal states. The few injuries Karin could see were minor and Orihime was already tending to them. Tesra was clearly exhausted and all of them were coated in the gore and filth created by the destruction of so many insects. Yumichika appeared on the verge of a meltdown as he took in his reflection in one of the sheets of ice that Toshiro had created.

Aizen gave the blade a hard, sharp downward movement, cleaning it and then sheathed his Zanpakuto. No one looked at her, or more accurately, she suspected that the rest could not see her, that Aizen had cloaked her with his Zanpakuto’s powers. Obviously, he intended to keep this arrangement from his followers.

“I regret to inform you all that Grimmjow, his daughter Ajuga, and Szayel entered the Royal Realm through the Swarm’s portal and attempted to usurp my power. As such, I declare them traitors. If you encounter them, you are to kill them immediately. Their pets are free for the taking.” He didn’t elaborate any further than that.

There was a moment of shocked silence, followed by various reactions, with Nnoitra giving off a laugh and wide grin. Ulquiorra went still. Orihime, busy healing a shallow gash on Harribel’s arm, gasped in shock. Starrk stiffened. Toshiro and Harribel managed to maintain their cool exteriors, but Karin thought she saw the Third shift uncomfortably and Toshiro placed a hand on the small of her back.

_Harribel agreed to help us with overthrowing Aizen… what will she do now? Will she tell Aizen what she learned?_ Karin wondered. Did it even matter anymore? Their original plan was dead and with her mate and Szayel gone, Harribel was the only conspirator remaining.

“Where’s Diaemus-kun?” Orihime asked, her voice wavering with the amount of fright in it.

“Your son went after them before I could stop him,” Aizen answered. “You have such a loyal boy, Ulquiorra. I hope that he will be able to return to us in time. He is clever and resourceful, so I’m certain he will find a way back, as he did to tell us of the Hive’s location.”

Aizen’s compliments hid what she knew to be true: that he was uncertain of Diaemus’s involvement. Technically, he spoke the truth. Diaemus _had_ gone with them before Aizen arrived in the Throne room. Karin wished that she could comfort Orihime, but even if Orihime were able to see and talk to her, she had little good news for her friend. If Zee were right, then Aizen would simply expand the ‘wanted’ list to include their son… but only if Aizen learned that he was now her daughter’s Consort. For the boy’s sake, she hoped Zee had been wrong. Grimmjow would be angry enough about the drugging. She didn’t want to think about what her mate would do to Diaemus if he truly believed Ulquiorra’s son had touched their daughter.

Starrk looked like he was about to speak, most likely to ask about Hana since Aizen hadn’t mentioned her at all, but Aizen ignored the First and made an expansive gesture.

“Come. The Swarm has been defeated, their outpost in this Realm destroyed and their Generals executed. You’ve done well, my warriors! Let us return home and celebrate with a proper banquet. In fact, as a reward for your efforts this day, I will take my Army home now, rather than force you to endure such a long and tedious journey home. Gather around, my Espada. Kūkanten'i!”

Karin saw more than felt Aizen’s power rise tremendously. Her stomach lurched with the sudden sensation of moving faster than any life form ought to. When it ended, she found herself standing in one of Aizen’s many gardens at the Palace. She knew the display of power had more to do with silently reminding them of how strong he was than any desire to get his minions home quickly.

“Go home, bathe, take pleasure in your pets and rest. Tonight, we will hold a feast to celebrate our victory over the Swarm and the return of balance to the Realms,” Aizen bade them.

“Fuck yeah!” Nnoitra exclaimed, waltzing off with a bone-tired Tesra dragging his feet in the Fifth’s wake.

“Oh, a bath,” Yumichika murmured gratefully, though he did steal a worried glance at Ggio, whose eyes remained glued to the ground. Byakuya certainly didn’t look thrilled to be back in the Seireitei, nor did he look eager to return to the Kuchiki Estate and Karin didn’t blame him. He had been gone for some time and she suspected that Yammy didn’t take well to abstinence. Toshiro and Harribel left quietly, but the two exchanged a look and Harribel peered at Starrk from beneath her golden lashes. She probably wanted to know where her fraccion was as well, but chose not to bring it up until she had more information. Szayel hadn’t been wrong when he’d told her about the woman’s innate sense of caution.

Starrk hesitated, but eventually let go of his Resurrección, losing the furred outfit and the pistols and regaining an eye and a subordinate. Lilynette appeared next to him and the male half of the First ushered the girl away, despite the fact she looked ready to get into a shouting match with their leader over Hana’s absence. Starrk was going to have to be the one to tell Jushiro and Nanao that her daughter was missing in action and the twins that both of their parents and their guardian were now wanted criminals and wouldn’t be back for them.

He and Lilynette were also the only ones standing in the way of the Numeros trying to Claim the children. She prayed that Starrk, for all his laziness, would try to find out what had really happened and that he would keep Abisara and Vindula safe.

_Starrk is smart. He’ll figure things out,_ she tried to tell herself.

Eventually, the only one left was Gin. He was the picture of subservience as he bowed low enough for his long hair to brush the grass.

“Gin,”

“Hai, Kami-sama?”

“Have the empty room next to mine prepared. We have an honoured guest with us. Do treat her as you would my wife,” Aizen informed his slave.

Karin knew he’d dropped the illusion that kept her invisible, because Gin’s eyes shifted to her. The surprise she saw flash in his eyes was brief, smothered quickly behind his usual mask.

“It would seem that the late Soul King’s granddaughter has been under my nose this entire time,” Aizen explained and then gave Karin an indulgent smile. “See to it that she is cleaned, fed and dressed appropriately. Oh, and tell no one of her presence here. Should I find out that you’ve let it slip that she’s currently under my roof, I will have your tongue removed in the most painful way I can devise.”

“Hai, Kami-sama.” Gin bowed again, his normally pale face going even whiter as he did so. Aizen didn’t bother looking at Karin when he next spoke to her.

“You are to remain within your rooms and the garden attached to them. I will send my wife in to gather a sample of your blood to confirm your lineage later this evening. I trust you will behave yourself and not give Gin any problems, Karin-chan?”

“Provided you leave my friends and family alone, I will not try to escape,” she answered, her voice equally as cool as his. They were, temporarily, at a stalemate, though she knew he had more cards than she did. In fact, he wasted no time in playing the first.

“Good. Do be a dear and follow Gin to your new home. He will tend to your needs for the time being. I should warn you, that since I can‘t risk damaging your body, his will take any beating I feel you deserve.”

Karin swallowed, and cast a sideways look at the thin, abused man before confirming that she understood. She didn’t really know Gin that well and had only met him a few times, but the thought of anyone being tortured in her place sickened her.

Aizen waved them away before he left, probably to order his staff to prepare for the victory feast.

“This way please, Karin-sama.”

Gin motioned with his hand towards garden gate, the one that lead to the Palace itself. That was the extent of their conversation, however. There was nothing to do but follow him. After all, she could do little about her current situation, other than what she already had done, and if nothing else, she’d be able to take a hot bath for the first time in nearly a week.

What might come afterwards, she knew, was anyone’s guess.


	57. Left Behind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas all. Now enjoy some more emotional torture because I am certified evil.

Starrk finally let Lilynette go, after making sure his smaller, feistier half didn’t plan on doing anything rash, like marching back to the Palace and demanding that they go back for Hana. They both needed a bath, but he had bigger priorities now and so he told her to go home, check on Soi Fon and the children and clean herself up. She stuck out her tongue at him, but went anyway.

He watched her go, glad she really hadn’t put up a struggle. What he really needed was a chance to think without worrying about her. Starrk also needed to make sense of what had just happened. Unfortunately, the one with the answers he needed was also the one who had just slashed his pack’s strength in half and smiled while he’d done it.

The best option would be to talk to the two people whose opinions he’d come to both respect and trust, because he’d inevitably have to do so anyway. He continued on to the 2nd Division, where he could feel Jushiro and Nanao, the two apparently taking their midday meal together. In the meantime, he tried to organize the various bits of information he did have. Maybe, between the three of them, they could assemble the pieces into something coherent.

The First didn’t actually doubt Aizen’s assertion that Grimmjow, Karin, and Szayel had somehow betrayed him while in the Royal Realm. It would have surprised him if any of them had _remained_ loyal after all of the things Aizen had inflicted on the Seventh and his pack. Starrk wasn’t particularly pleased with their leader either and hadn’t been for some time. However, there was no _evidence_ that they had actually done something during the battle to earn such a label. Szayel, in particular, would have been leery of giving Aizen any ammunition to use against him. The scientist had far too much to lose to risk doing something like that. There was also the fact that Starrk himself had told Grimmjow to leave off wasting his time on an opponent whose defences were too strong for him to crack and to go after his mate. Aizen should have allowed him to speak up on the Sixth’s behalf instead of shutting him down.

Then there was Hana. Where Ajuga and Diaemus went, Hana was certain to follow. Yet Aizen had made no mention of Nanao’s daughter, as a captive, a traitor, or a casualty.

Perhaps the declaration had something to do with Aizen’s drop in power. Most of the others would not have noticed it, nor would they have felt it unless Aizen wanted them to know about it. Starrk had picked up on it though, the moment he’d exited the strange gateway. Kami’s power had taken a distinct nosedive, nearly returning to what he’d had prior to assuming the Throne.

Logic dictated that Aizen had lost control of the Throne and the power that went with it, though he still had plenty of his own. Starrk knew better than to think his leader had given it up voluntarily, which meant that someone had taken the Throne’s power away without asking. As Aizen was still alive, whatever means the culprit had used hadn’t included violence. Instead, it suggested that someone with an actual right to the Spirit King’s Throne had been involved and that’s where things got murky.

Starrk wouldn’t put it past Szayel to have discovered and engineered a way to get into the Royal Realm. The scientist did have access to Unohana’s blood after all and a stealthy, underhanded reputation. Then again, as insane as Szayel could be at times, he wouldn’t dare try anything unless he knew there was no chance that anything might go wrong. If anyone were to ask him about the look he’d seen on Szayel’s face when he’d followed Karin into that pillar of light, ‘assured’ wouldn’t be the word Starrk would choose. ‘Terrified’ would be a better description. Starrk suspected something else was up, and if Szayel hadn’t planned the supposed ‘betrayal’, the only other person that might have had a hand in it was Karin.

That was a little more believable. When trouble struck, the human woman had a knack for finding her way into the center of it, though to be fair she also provided more than her share of solutions. It meant that he needed information and help from two of the better minds at his disposal. Thankfully, getting their help was a given.

He arrived at the 2nd Division, walking past the surprised members and into the office where Jushiro was going over a report with Nanao. Both looked up, startled at his return, and any greetings died on their lips when they noticed his sombre expression and the fact he looked even more disreputable than usual. He reached up and scratched the back of his neck, wishing Jushiro’s office had a couch. Was his distress that obvious?

“You’re back. How did the mission go?” The silver-haired Taichou was the first to break the silence.

“We destroyed the Hive,” he admitted and yawned.

“That is good news,” Nanao replied, though she sounded concerned as well.

_Guess I am that obvious,_ he thought with some regret. _Better get it over with…_

“Not everyone returned.”

The stricken looks on both their faces mirrored the dread he could taste coming from Jushiro. Putting both hands up, he waved them to try to mitigate how dire that statement sounded.

“No one died,” he tried to explain, all the while going about the room closing windows and locking doors. They both let out sighs of relief at this and followed his progress around the office with their eyes but gave him time to continue without interrupting him.

He had a theory, one that had been percolating in the back of his mind for a very long time and now was the perfect time to see if that theory had legs. When he’d finished with the security measures, he pulled out the spare chair and sat down. Starrk sighed and tightened his grip on Jushiro’s Claim, watching as the Shinigami stiffened when he felt the controlling reiatsu entrap his own. He didn’t like having to resort to this, but he needed the truth.

“Someone took the Throne’s power away from Aizen during the battle with the Swarm,” he announced and watched their faces.

Jushiro’s fear lashed into him, as potent as a striking whip, while shock bloomed on Nanao’s face, confirming his suspicions. Jushiro knew something and she did not. While he trusted Jushiro to be honest with him, he needed to be one hundred percent certain that the information was accurate before he decided what he needed to do next.

“Jushiro?” He looked at the trapped Shinigami, letting the man’s name contain the question he really wanted to ask. Jushiro might not be as sharp as either he or the late Kyoraku Shunsui, but he was certainly no slouch.

“Karin is the late Spirit King’s granddaughter,” Jushiro confessed in a whisper, mindful of the need for secrecy.

Nanao gasped, turning to the noble whose house she shared. “But Isshin was a Shiba…”

Jushiro shook his head, stopping her before she could continue and motioned for her to keep her voice down.

“That was a cover, to protect him. The Shiba family fell into disgrace because they misplaced the King’s youngest son. The late Soutaichou gave him a position, mostly because the young man wanted experience. ‘Isshin’ wanted to know about the lives of those his father’s actions affected. He served as Taichou of the 10th Division for years and only the Soutaichou, Shunsui and I knew his real identity. Then, for some reason, he went to the Living World without authorization and failed to return. That was,” the pale-haired man looked to the side, as if tallying something, “over thirty-five years ago. The Soutaichou sent a search team to Kurakara, but there was no trace of him. If Karin was his daughter, then Kurosaki Ichigo and Yuzu…”

Jushiro fell silent as the implications hit him, as did Nanao.

Starrk rubbed his forehead, pinching the bridge of his nose as he fought off the urge to lean back in the chair and close his eyes. He needed to think, not snooze and this was one of the times that he regretted that the Vasto Lorde he’d once been had given most of its ambition and energy to his shorter half. Instead, he gave his ‘pets’ an account of what he’d seen before, during and immediately after the battle, finally concluding with the portal’s destruction.

“Aizen said that the portal led to the Royal Realm and that Ajuga, Grimmjow, and Szayel tried to take the Throne from him. I’d say the decrease in his power confirms at least part of his story and you’ve confirmed a second part.”

Jushiro then gave Starrk a sharp look. “You think Karin sat on the Throne, don’t you?” he asked, keeping a wary eye on the door, lest one of his Division members try to walk in and find the doors locked. “How?”

Starrk’s slate-blue eyes slid to Jushiro and he released the grip he had on the man’s Claim while he considered the question. Did he truly think Karin had stolen Aizen’s power while up there? He reviewed Aizen’s actions today, going over them staring at spot on the desk.

“I think it’s likely. I know he declared Szayel, Ajuga, and Grimmjow traitors. Anyone who sees them is to kill them on sight, which means if they were in the Royal Realm, they aren’t there now and that they’re still alive. He didn’t say anything about Diaemus, but that is probably due to Ulquiorra’s presence. Nor did he mention Hana. Either that was an oversight or it’s because he isn’t sure she’s involved yet.”

Nanao sighed in relief. It meant that she considered her daughter safe for the time being. Knowing the girl the way he did, he’d bet hard money and his softest pillow that Hana had likely gone with the others, wherever that might be.

“So Ajuga and her father are traitors, but Karin isn’t? That seems unlikely.”

Jushiro said this with a look of scepticism, and the male half of the First had to admit that bit made no sense to him either. He ran fingers through his shaggy, dirty hair and pulled out a twig, giving it a tired look before placing it on the desk. As much as he wanted a nap, a bath sounded good too and he was sure that if he didn’t take one shortly upon returning to the Estate, Lilynette would be after him with a bucket of soapy water.

“No, not Karin,” Starrk agreed as he stared at the ceiling for a few minutes.

Karin and Grimmjow kept nothing from one another. Where one went, the other followed and the Sixth wasn’t always the one in the lead. If Grimmjow had pulled something, Karin would have been right there to back him up. Separating the two would also be impossible, unless one was dead. He grimaced at that possibility but discarded it. Had Karin perished while she was there, Grimmjow would have attacked Aizen with all he had and Starrk would have seen some evidence on Aizen’s person. ‘Kami’ had walked out of the portal without a hair out of place, which killed that scenario.

“Aizen had his Zanpakuto drawn when he rejoined us. I think there was a reason for that and that it didn’t involve self-defence.”

Nanao looked lost, or perhaps just still thankful Hana was safe, but Jushiro appeared to follow his line of reasoning and when his mouth thinned into an unhappy line, Starrk knew he’d arrived at the same conclusion as his Master.

“You think he cloaked Karin with Kyoka Suigetsu, and has her in custody,” Jushiro stated.

“Yes,” he agreed, glad that Jushiro could at least provide confirmation. “I do not think Karin was the one to sit on the Throne though. He called for Ajuga’s death, not hers. I think he’s taken Karin captive, which is why he never mentioned her. The way he moved, and the way he kept glancing to the side, suggested there was another presence there. If it was Ajuga… _we_ all know that kid wouldn’t have sat still. She would have had her claws and fangs in him the whole way.”

Nanao’s eyes darted to the window and she pressed all ten fingers to her mouth. His fraccion was not only intelligent, but also observant and she’d shared a house with Karin for nearly a decade. The two talked and worked together on an almost hourly basis. If anyone knew how Karin might act in such a situation, it would be Nanao.

“Karin though…she would have gone with him. She’d be obedient if it meant he wouldn’t go after her family right away.”

_Takes one mother to understand the actions of another, I guess,_ Starrk conceded silently and let out a long breath as she went on. “But, why are _you_ back so quickly?”

Starrk’s yawn was truly ear splitting this time and he flexed his jaw. His ears had popped during the transport and he still hadn’t gotten used to the pressure change.

“Aizen used his powers to get us back here. Didn’t even need an incantation, just the name of the spell. I think it was part reward, because we’re all pretty mangy.” His lazy admission made Nanao smile, despite the worrisome topic and Jushiro chuckled weakly before they got back down to business. “I also think he wanted to remind us that he was still in charge. Maybe it was for my benefit, since no one else seemed to notice he isn’t quite the man he used to be.”

Nanao and Jushiro traded a look between them, but Starrk was sure he’d nailed it. He’d been straining on the proverbial collar around his neck for a while now and Starrk knew he’d probably stepped over some line or another with ‘Kami’ when he’d intervened on Szayel’s behalf.

“Besides, if Karin was with him, taking us all back that way instead of making everyone hoof it means he’d be able to start in on getting his Heir that much sooner.”

While his word clearly appalled and distressed Nanao, it pulled a resigned nod from Jushiro. He also felt an inordinate amount of depression from the man. Perhaps the difference between those who had worn the Taichou’s haori and those who had not, prior to Aizen’s ascension, involved an inability to lie to oneself about an ugly situation. Aizen needed an Heir and if he had Karin and Unohana at his disposal, he’d get one soon enough.

Starrk wished he had real proof, something tangible to confirm that Karin was, indeed, Aizen’s prisoner. He’d have something to use against Kami at that point, but all he really had were suppositions and those wouldn’t be enough. Getting evidence would be dangerous as well, on a number of different levels.

“Wait, if Szayel’s been declared a traitor, what does that mean for Vindula and Abisara?” Nanao suddenly asked. “Szayel and Nemu would never leave them behind willingly and you’ve seen how protective Renji is with those children!”

Starrk froze, as did Jushiro; he hadn’t had the time to consider the Seventh’s children, or how this might affect them. Aizen had declared Szayel and Grimmjow’s property up for grabs, which meant that Nemu and Renji would have targets on their backs the moment they showed up in the Seireitei, and Starrk wouldn’t put it past any of the Numeros to try to help themselves to the Seventh’s children. Vindula was especially vulnerable, considering the previous attempt on her and this time, they’d have no guardian to intervene nor would Aizen punish anyone who tried to Claim them.

“Starrk…” Jushiro began, the growing alarm in the man’s voice equal to the alarm rising in his Starrk’s chest. Without a word, he rose, unlocked the door and disappeared, making his way back to the Estate as quickly as he could before something could happen. He hoped that Lilynette would be there to prevent any potential kidnapping, but with someone as loud-mouthed as Nnoitra, word of what had happened was sure to have spread by now.

He had to get there before his pack dwindled any further.

Rage and fear…

…and utter helplessness.

Those three emotions lanced through his heart like toxic knives as he stepped out of the Garganta. His feet crushed damp grass and the smell of orchard flowers filled his nose. Behind him, Szayel tumbled out of the tear between the Living World and the Dangai and immediately went to his knees.

They were just in time. The passage collapsed in on itself the second the scientist’s body hit terra firma and winked out.

His burden stirred, and then started struggling in earnest. He let the Espada go, dumping him unceremoniously in the middle of a patch of wildflowers. Grimmjow staggered as his metabolism worked on ridding his body of the sedative. Truthfully, the Sixth was the last of Renji’s concerns. Instead, he took two steps to the right, reached down and hauled the scientist to his feet by the front of his uniform.

“HOW COULD YOU LET HER DO THAT!” he all but screamed at Szayel. “We left them behind! You KNOW that fucking Aizen has ‘plans’ for your son! You know we’ll end up on the wanted list, and that will put the two of them on the open market! You should have left _me_ behind, damn you! Who is going to protect them now?”

Kami, the very idea of Aizen getting his mitts on Abisara sickened Renji. Aizen had been eyeing the boy for months now and Renji hated the barely-disguised salaciousness on the tyrant’s face whenever he saw Abisara. It was as if he’d already decided that Szayel’s son would be his next plaything. Only his age had saved him thus far. Then there was Vindula-chan. He shivered, remembering the few times Aizen _had_ paid attention to her. The beautiful, trusting little girl would happily skip right into the snake’s den and not think twice about what she was doing, as long as he dangled something pretty in front of her.

Such was his panic that he didn’t even realize he was crying until his tears started to stain Szayel’s uniform and his eyesight blurred. The Seventh Espada’s fingers scrabbled against his, trying to get Renji to let him go. When that failed, Szayel fell back and tried reason.

“Aizen would have…”

The pink menace never got to finish. Renji found himself abruptly shoved aside by a furious Grimmjow. The blue-haired Arrancar assumed Renji’s place and stance and twisted the other’s collar tightly.

“Open that fucking gate right now!” Grimmjow snarled and continued to twist until the other Espada began to gasp and choke.

“I can’t!” he rasped. “The device is on the other side! Besides, Karin _ordered_ me to make sure you didn’t do anything to get yourself killed, so even if I _wanted_ to and had the means, I _can‘t_!” The last came out as a horrified whisper as he slumped in Grimmjow’s grasp. “Kami, we really left them behind,” Szayel choked, his guilt-ridden golden eyes squeezing shut. Grimmjow spat and pulled the scientist’s body up until his face was mere inches away from Szayel’s own. Then he violently shook Szayel and Renji heard fabric tear.

“AIZEN IS PROBABLY FUCKING RAPING HER AS WE SPEAK!!! OPEN THE FUCKING GATE!!!!” he howled at the top of his lungs.

The Sixth had apparently lost what little reason he had left. Renji had only seen glimmers of that look before, on a night when he’d had a chance to go all out against the Espada in a knockdown, drag-out fight, where the only rule involved not losing limbs.

The fury he saw blazing in Grimmjow’s eyes now left that night in the dust and for a second the redhead thought the Espada would kill the much weaker Szayel. Renji guessed that Nemu thought the same thing because he saw her move forward out of the corner of his eye, another hypodermic in her hand. He doubted that this one contained anything as benign as a sedative. As much as he detested Szayel right now, he couldn’t allow Grimmjow to kill the twins’ father and he couldn’t allow their mother to kill the Espada cutting off her mate’s air supply.

He started to reach for Grimmjow’s shoulder, his right hand reaching for Zabimaru’s hilt, only to find Pantera at his throat, the hateful glare in those blue eyes now encompassing him as well. The situation had deteriorated in a matter of seconds and if he didn’t do something soon, there might not _be_ anyone left to go back for Abisara and Vindula.

Renji felt himself start to hyperventilate.

Before Szayel could respond, the Shinigami heard a new, guttural voice chimed in on the murder-about-to-happen, and he staggered under the menacing weight of a reiatsu signature that tasted of maniacal violence and bloodthirsty glee seasoned with a dash of psychosis.

“Well, look what the cat dragged back!”

It was enough to spook Renji out of his panic attack. He _knew_ that voice. He’d spent enough time listening to it during his career as a Shinigami after all. The others froze too, recognizing a much bigger danger when they heard and felt it, along with several others.

The edge pressed against his jugular eased away as Grimmjow looked at something over Renji’s shoulder. Nemu slowly lowered the hand holding the needle, her green eyes getting bigger. Szayel hung from Grimmjow’s fist, wearing a dazed expression, until Grimmjow turned and flung the Seventh straight at Renji, discarding him in favour of a new target. The Shinigami caught the scientist around the midsection and in a flash, Nemu had her hands on her mate, smoothing back his hair and whispering things to him as she lowered him back to the grass and got him into a sitting position.

The source of the killer reiatsu brayed with laughter and when Renji turned around, he found himself staring up at one Zaraki Kenpachi. The thuggish ex-Taichou hadn’t changed much, save for his longer, even-spikier hair. Everything else, including the eye patch, had remained pretty much the same. That included the pink-haired child perched on his shoulder like a parrot. Yachiru waved down at him and clapped her hands in delight.

“Hey, Ren-Ren! Boy, you guys sure are dirty!” 

Renji made a vague motion with his right hand and hoped Yachiru took it as a greeting, keeping his eyes on Grimmjow’s back. The way his muscles bunched told him that the Sixth had just traded up as far as targets. When he saw who had caught Grimmjow’s attention, he groaned audibly.

Kurosaki Ichigo, a good six inches taller and more muscular than the last time Renji had seen him, stood ankle-deep in the grass a few yards away, Zangetsu already drawn and pointed directly at Grimmjow. The knuckles of his other hand were bone-white as the man clenched his free fist and Kami help them all, his expression was just as full of white-hot fury as Grimmjow’s was. He saw a few others that he didn’t recognize approaching through the trees, but the person standing next to the strawberry was the one that grabbed and held his attention.

For a few, brief seconds all thoughts of the twins fled.

His first thought was that Rukia looked good… really good. She’d cropped her hair shorter, but she appeared healthy and even if they were full of apprehension, her indigo-coloured eyes were still bright. She felt much stronger too, and stood with far more confidence about her than he remembered. His childhood friend’s focus was strictly on the potential bloodbath in front of her, and he didn’t blame her. Rukia’s fingers rested lightly on her Zanpakuto’s hilt, but Renji was well aware of how fast she could draw it if she had to.

She also stood very close to Ichigo, a bit too close he thought with a pang. Then again, he should have expected that. She had chosen Ichigo over him after all and had married the brat to boot. It was also in Rukia’s nature to back up those for whom she cared. He’d known there was _something_ between them from the minute he and Byakuya had dragged her back to the Soul Society, all those years ago. The clues had been there for Renji to see: her reticence to implicate Ichigo in the loss of her powers, her willingness to dive headfirst into Hueco Mundo to help Ichigo get Orihime back. Renji was the one who had chosen to ignore them.

To his surprise, now that he’d seen her again, he found that the knowledge didn’t really hurt. He’d wondered, over the last few months, what he would feel if and/or when he saw her again. The answer to that turned out to be ‘grateful.’ She was well and there was a new sense of purpose in the way she held herself, qualities befitting a Kuchiki-now-Kurosaki

Still, he couldn’t really say he was sorry about her choice. He’d made one of his own after all and he carried the reward around with him like a protective cloak. As the others came to a halt behind Rukia, Renji peered around and through the branches and the blossoms, trying to find the one person he suddenly wanted to see more anything. His out-of-control emotions ought to have summoned her, and she couldn’t have missed Grimmjow and Ichigo’s reiatsu levels rising as both prepared to tear one another limb from limb.

Where in the Living World was she?

**_“What about my sister being raped?”_ **

Grimmjow had been about to cut Red a new smile for trying to interfere when company arrived.

He remembered the huge, one-eyed bastard as the one who had gone up against Nnoitra and the dark-haired girl had been the one to kill the dumbest of his fraccion, DiRoy, before Grimmjow had put a hand through her midsection. But when he saw a head of orange hair and a furious scowl emerge from the trees, Grimmjow decided that he’d have plenty of time to let Szayel know how pissed he was later. Renji could have at the Seventh while he faced down a more worthy opponent.

It had been so long since he had last seen the former teen or cared about punching Ichigo’s face into the dirt. Then again, the person glowering at him, sword already drawn and ready to go didn’t look much like the punk kid he remembered. It had been what… almost ten years now? Kurosaki Ichigo had grown, his face hardened with maturity and he’d certainly packed on a decent amount of muscle in the last decade, but Ichigo’s hateful eyes were always what had stood out for the Espada. Grimmjow could see how much the other wanted to gut him.

He pitched Szayel Renji’s way. The scientist’s mate was all over him in a heartbeat. That only served to anger him further; why should Szayel have the benefit of a mate when _his_ was most likely already in Aizen’s grasp?

Then Szayel went and opened his mouth. That served as the spark for Grimmjow’s very short fuse.

“Karin-sama ordered us to leave her behind in the Royal Realm. Aizen knows about her bloodline. She had me drug him…” Szayel tried to tell Grimmjow’s rival, but from the change that came over the human’s face, Ichigo stopped following Szayel’s pathetic excuse for an explanation after the second sentence. The mask came out and that eerie, distorted, gurgling sound Grimmjow remembered filled the air. The next second, he had to bring Pantera up to block Zangetsu as Ichigo tried to bury the sleek, black blade in the Espada’s throat.

“YOU LEFT HER?”

The enraged man roared as he surged forward and struck again. Blue sparks went flying as the weapons met, then met again. He heard Renji scramble to haul Nemu and Szayel out of the way, half-dragging the other Arrancar and adding a new fashion element to the other’s travel-dirtied white uniform: grass stains.

Grimmjow didn’t get a chance to respond, and if he were honest with himself, he didn’t want to waste the time or the breath. He didn’t want to admit that Szayel had gotten the drop on him and tranquilized him. He definitely didn’t want to think about how Karin had probably been the one to order him to do so. He didn’t want to acknowledge that he had failed, that she’d likely stayed behind to slow Aizen down and give him time to escape with their daughter.

His mind awash in shame at his failure and livid at Szayel’s weakness, Aizen and the universe in general, Grimmjow needed an outlet for his boiling anger. Fortunately, Kurosaki seemed more than willing to give him that. His answer was to bellow like a bull about to charge.

“Grind, Pantera!”

He released his blade and before Ichigo could land a third blow, he attacked the masked hybrid with every ounce of power he had. Zangetsu sliced through his Hierro, leaving long red cuts that bled as he moved. His claws ripped through Ichigo’s flowing black kosode, into the flesh of his chest and the meat of one thigh. Neither one of them fought as if they noticed the wounds, though Grimmjow could hear shouting around them. Then, as quickly as it began, their fight was brought to an end, far sooner than either one would have liked.

Someone big and heavy landed on his back, bearing him to the ground and pinning him. A scarred, calloused hand gripped his long hair and pulled it back harshly and a wicked-looking blade with a serrated edge pressed against his throat. Grimmjow’s eyes went wide at the sneak attack.

“Down, kitty cat!” a childlike, girlish voice exclaimed cheerfully.

“Stop it, Ichigo!”

The short woman snapped that order at Ichigo in an authoritative, no-nonsense tone that Grimmjow knew only came from sharing a last name. She’d pinned the hybrid’s mask-first in the grass, holding him by one shoulder, while Yoruichi, back to being bipedal and clothed, had him by the other.

“Rukia, damn it…”

“Calm down, all of you!”

Yoruichi cuffed Ichigo on the back of the head to get her point across and nodded in satisfaction when the mask on his face dissipated. She also shot Grimmjow a warning look that told him he had a very limited amount of time to let go of his Resurrección. His mouth twisted in a sneer at her, but when the hand in his hair tightened its grip, he allowed his reiatsu to slip away until he was back to his normal state. When the woman seemed satisfied that this round was over, she addressed them both.

“Karin’s decision, as painful as it is for us to accept, was the right one. Aizen won’t try to kill Ajuga until he can get an Heir out of either Karin or Unohana. That will take a minimum of nine months. It might take longer in Karin’s case.”

She gave Ichigo a harsh look as she got up. He chose not to move, which Grimmjow considered wise.

“Your sister is a smart cookie. I’ve talked to her enough to know that much. She’ll stall Aizen any way she can, starting with letting him know that she can cast a Claim by touch.” Yoruichi wriggled her fingers at Ichigo, as if to emphasize her point. She then turned her golden eyes on Grimmjow and snorted derisively. “Give your mate some credit, Jaegerjaquez-san! She’s not some helpless little powder-puff and at least _she_ understands that the most important person right now is Ajuga, not her.”

Szayel, massaging his abused throat, hesitantly joined the conversation. The Seventh watched both him and Renji warily for any sign that they planned on continuing to thrash him.

“Such a threat, I hope, ought to keep him at bay for a time. While he could easily snap any such Claim, there is a danger that she could hold him long enough to force him to do himself harm. One would hope that she might even order him to swallow his Zanpakuto through his navel before he could dissolve her Claim, but I’m not certain of the odds on that. I _can_ tell you, from personal experience, that Aizen likes games. I think he likes the pursuit more than the having at times.” Szayel muttered the last, before shaking himself and finishing his thoughts. “He’ll likely play this game for at least a little while with her. It might give us the time we need to think of a way to recover from the hash this whole thing has made of our plans.”

“True enough, Espada” Yoruichi said and then narrowed her eyes at Grimmjow. “So instead of trying to kill each other, _we_ should be making the most of her sacrifice. We have a short amount of time to kill Aizen and rescue Karin before he gets bored and ends it. If we move fast enough, we might even get to her before Aizen can touch her, but,” she then turned to Ichigo with that same, no-nonsense voice, “that is not going to happen if we waste time indulging in territorial pissing competitions. Keep at it boys and I’ll make sure that neither of you have anything to compete _with_ , if you get my drift.”

Renji went a little pale at that threat, and Grimmjow had little doubt that she had both the means and the will to do it. She’d managed to elude Aizen’s patrols and search parties for the last decade-and-a-half and drag some powerful people along for the ride. He wouldn’t put a double neutering past her.

The weight on his back eased up, the hand in his hair let go and the jagged Zanpakuto withdrew.

“Now be a good kitty!”

Grimmjow sat up and took in a few deep breaths to refill his lungs, scowling at the imp sitting on the one-eyed-monster’s shoulders and rubbing the back of his neck.

Yoruichi, as much as he hated to admit it, was right about a few things and her mention of his daughter felt like a kick to the kidneys. Fuck, he had almost forgotten about Ajuga, and that whole Consort thing. He saw himself having a chat with Ulquiorra’s boy about that bit of business. Never mind Kurosaki Ichigo; Karin would be the one to kill him if anything happened to their child and she’d been counting on him to keep Aizen from taking her too.


	58. Niece

Ajuga shivered as sob after sob wracked her body. What had she done? In her arrogant quest to prove to everyone how strong she was, to chase down an opponent she knew was stronger than her, she had doomed them all, and left her mother to be raped by Aizen. She recalled the few times she had smelled the remains of Aizen’s release on Szayel. This time it would be her mother, and there was nothing she could do about it. That thought was enough to set off a fresh round of weeping.

The arms wrapped around her tightened and the wings shifted a little closer, sheltering her in a warm cocoon that only slightly eased her pain. She found it odd that, yet again, she was hiding under Diaemus’ wings and finding comfort in the act instead of mortification. She’d been crying so much that her nose was stuffed, and the overwhelming smell of apple blossoms around them didn’t help, but she did manage to pick up on the presence of a third person. With one reddened eye, she peeked through a gap between Diaemus’s wings and his body and looked down to see Hana sitting against the trunk of the tree in which she and Diaemus were currently perched.

“You knew?” she accused her friend in-between sniffles. Her Shinigami friend let out a deep sigh and looked up at the two of them.

“Yeah,” Hana admitted, with a touch of remorse in her voice. “I overheard Zee talking to Karin-san about it the first time they met. I don’t think anyone knew I knew, except Diaemus, but that’s only because I was the one who told him.”

“You knew too?” Ajuga muttered sullenly against the chest of the young man who held her. He imitated Hana with a sigh of his own and a similar confession.

“Hana confided in me, in the hopes of keeping your heritage safe from the Swarm to prevent this exact scenario. The gambit clearly failed.”

“Who else knows?” she mumbled into his chest.

“Szay and your father, I suspect. Possibly Nemu, since she is Szay’s mate and lab assistant. I don’t know of anyone else who knew… at the time.” Hana counted off the list of those in the know on her fingers. Ajuga sniffled again and nodded at the names. At least the list was short and the few on it would have been in positions to know anyway.

“Any other life changing secrets you’ve been keeping from me?”

Hana tilted her head back and regarded the two hybrids and Ajuga could see the concern in Hana’s eyes. Still, it was hard not to be bitter about finding out one’s friends had known about something so important and hadn’t seen fit to let her know.

“Nope. That’s the extent of it. I am sorry we didn’t tell you, but since Karin-san didn’t tell you, I thought it would be best if I kept what I knew to myself. I knew what Aizen would do if he ever found out, and the less people who know the better. I only included Diaemus because, unlike me, he can keep up with you in battles. One taste of your blood and the Swarm would have grabbed you, just like they tried to grab her. That‘s why Karin-san didn’t like you fighting, and why the Swarm kept targeting her. Not because she didn‘t believe in your abilities, but because she was afraid to lose you.”

Then Hana lowered her voice and picked at her travel stained hakama.

“Remember that night, when I made you promise me that you wouldn’t go back to the Palace?”

“Yeah.”

Now it was Hana’s turn to bite her lower lip and work it between her teeth. Ajuga couldn’t help watching the girl’s face. The young Shinigami seemed to go back and forth with herself about something for a minute before she reached up and scratched a spot in her forearm.

“There’s a reason for that. Aizen once sent Gin to come get me and take me to see him. He made sure Mother was kept busy, so she couldn’t come with me. I could see Gin wasn’t too happy to drag me up there, but it isn’t like he had a choice. I think I was… eight maybe?”

Diaemus’s breathing became shallower and Ajuga felt him tense under her cheek as her friend went on to describe her ‘tea party’ with Kami and the blood test he’d wanted to perform on her, as well as the slick manipulation of the truth with which Szayel had saved her. The revelation made Ajuga squirm, especially knowing that Hana hadn’t been able to tell anyone about it.

“So, it isn’t just you. Karin-san and Szay knew about it, but I certainly don’t have as much Royal Blood in me as you and your mother. Wouldn’t have stopped the Swarm though and it wouldn’t have stopped Aizen either. If he remembers what Szay told him, he might decide to collect me too. So you’re stuck with me,” she finished and gave Ajuga a faint smile.

With this new information, a lot of her mother’s actions suddenly made a hell of a lot of sense and Ajuga felt guilt creep into her thoughts as she remembered her reactions to the limits her mother tried to impose on her. There was also a surprising amount of anger at finding out her mother had kept something this important from her.

Silence fell around the three of them, broken only by the occasional twitter of a bird here and there and yelling from the other end of the orchard. Hana and Diaemus had pulled her away from the Garganta before she could climb back into it to get back to her mother and hauled her here, where she’d promptly lost it, crying like a snotty little cub on his shoulder. They’d left the adults to argue amongst themselves, which seemed like the smartest thing to do at the time.

Eventually, the reiatsu flaring and the shouting had stopped. She pulled free of Diaemus’s grasp, but not before giving his hand a squeeze in thanks for giving her somewhere safe to bawl her head off. He returned it and then stretched. Ajuga could see he didn’t look so good either. He had to feel as bad as she did, having left his parents behind. Orihime was probably a wreck by now and Kami only knew what Aizen might make of Diaemus’s disappearance this time around. The two climbed down from the fragrant branch to stand next to Hana, who had her hand cupped around her ear, listening for any further outbursts.

“Huh. Sounds like they have stopped being stupid. We should probably get back before they come looking for us,” her friend said. Ajuga nodded and for the first time since they’d tumbled out of the rip Szayel’s device created, really took in her surroundings.

“It’s pretty. Where are we, exactly?”

“Somewhere in the Living World,” Hana answered. “Wherever it is, I have a good idea of who lives here. Come on. You want to meet your uncle, don’t you?” Her expression brightened a little as well. “Maybe Yuzu-chan’s around too. I haven’t seen her in so long!”

“Uncle?” Ajuga asked, her curiosity getting the better of her.

“Kurosaki Ichigo. I thought your mother told you about him.” Hana paused and turned around. “Didn’t she?”

Her mother _had_ mentioned a brother once or twice, and she had definitely heard the name ‘Kurosaki’ drop from her father’s lips on occasion, though the way he said it told her that she’d be better off not asking him about it. Hana was the closest thing she had to a sibling, but she’d always wondered what it might be like to have a brother. Would she and a brother or sister be like Vindula and Abisara, teasing and fighting back and forth?

When she glanced at Diaemus, as if that might help her make a decision, he just shrugged and said “I was unaware your mother had family other than you and your father. I wonder if he’s as formidable as your mother.”

Hana gave him a dark look for mentioning Karin and Diaemus immediately looked contrite. Ajuga nodded, not wanting to think about things lest she start crying again. She’d already drenched one of his shoulders and she wasn’t sure if he’d offer her the other one.

“Let’s go,” she sighed, making up her mind and wiping each eye. There was nothing she could do about the red in them though. “We’re gonna have to meet him sooner or later. Might as well be sooner.”

Hana gave her a grin and the three made their way towards the spot where the Garganta had disgorged them earlier. Whatever it was that her father had done had managed to attract quite a crowd.

“Ah, Ajuga-chan, there you are,” a tall, athletic-looking, dark-skinned woman greeted her. This must be Yoruichi’s human form. Her voice sounded much different, more feminine, higher pitched and at the moment, beyond irritated, but her scent and her reiatsu signature hadn’t changed. Her ‘Wanted’ information mentioned shape shifting capabilities, and she was pretty distinctive-looking. Ajuga could see why the leader of the Escapees would choose to slink around in the far-less-conspicuous form of a cat.

It wasn’t all that hard for Ajuga to pick out her uncle from the rest of the Escapees. He had to be the one who had one fist clenched in the lapel of her father’s jacket and the other pulled back in order to throw a punch. He’d also gone pale and still the moment she and Diaemus had walked up. Yoruichi hooked one of her thumbs at the man in question.

“Ajuga Jaegerjaquez, I would like to introduce you to your uncle, Kurosaki Ichigo. I’m about to make an example of him, so please, don’t mind the bloodshed. He was warned.”

“So, you’re my uncle?” Ajuga asked, hardly impressed with the human. She grew even less so as he spluttered, shortly before his eyes hardened and he lunged anew at her father.

“What the hell did you do to Karin?” Ichigo shouted, throwing the threatened punch at Grimmjow’s jaw.

“What the hell do you think I did to her? We have been mated for a fucking decade you idiot!” her father snapped back and then smirked as he blocked the blow with one hand. Unfortunately, Ichigo swiftly cocked his fist a second time and instead of tossing it, he yanked her father off-balance and forward, straight into his knuckles. Grimmjow responded with some filthy language and a stomp to her uncle’s instep. Then the fist fight really got started. Yoruichi threw her hands up in the air.

“Alright. That’s it. Sorry, Rukia, but I’m neutering him now,” she declared angrily, cracking her knuckles and taking a step towards the fight. The three teenagers shared the same, ‘uugh’ look between them at the sight of adults behaving badly.

Fortunately for everyone, the cavalry chose that moment to arrive.

“Oh my, we seem to have additional company!”

Almost everyone turned to see a very pretty woman with honey-blonde hair approaching. For some reason, most of the Escapees quickly stepped back and gave her room to approach. She was dressed stylishly, save for the apron tied around her slender waist. However, she didn’t march up to the two combatants, nor did she attempt to break up the scuffle. Instead, she moved to stand before Ajuga and her friends. The woman scrutinized Hana for a few seconds before Ajuga saw recognition dawn in her brown eyes. She reached out and clasped Hana’s hands in nicely manicured ones.

“Goodness, Hana-chan! Look how much you have grown!” she exclaimed. “You were so much smaller the last time I saw you!”

“Yuzu-chan!”

Hana practically squealed in delight as gave the lovely woman a hug. “You’re smaller than I remember!”

Yuzu blushed and beamed at the young Shinigami.

“That’s because you have grown taller!”

When a particularly foul curse uttered by her uncle scorched the air and Ajuga’s ears, and she heard her father repeat it along with the ‘oof’ as someone’s fist hit someone else’s solar plexus, Yuzu gave Hana’s hand a quick squeeze. Her expression changed in the short march over to where the punching continued unabated

“You two will respect my wishes to behave while on my property, or you will find yourselves removed from it,” Yuzu demanded. Both men halted in mid-swing and actually looked cowed, though Ichigo got in one last punch to her father’s chin before releasing him. Yuzu’s eyes narrowed at that and in a flash, she had her uncle backing away from the finger she jabbed at him. “Ichi-nii, stop trying to kill Jaegerjaquez-san. That is no way to treat guests on my estate!”

Ajuga watched her take a deep breath and then leaned forward towards her uncle. She _almost_ found his petrified expression funny, since the younger woman was so much smaller than he was.

“Do _not_ make me get the spoon.”

If Ajuga had any doubts about whether or not this woman was related to her mother, they’d just been put to rest. Yuzu, content that she’d made her point, turned on her heel and walked back over to Ajuga and her friends, all sunshine and smile once more.

“Better. Now let’s see here. You must be Ajuga-chan. I can certainly see Grimmjow-san in you and a bit of Karin-neesan too! You have her hair and her chin and I’m certain that you have her smile.”

Ajuga suddenly found herself in her aunt’s arms. The blonde gave her a large hug and stroked her tangled, messy hair soothingly. After a few seconds of hesitation, Ajuga returned it with a growing sense of gratitude.

“Umm, nice to meet you Yuzu-san?” she stammered out. Her aunt pulled back after a moment and patted her cheek.

“There is no need for such formality with family. My, you must have been just adorable as a cub. I hope Karin-chan has pictures she can share. Are you an only child or do I have more nieces and nephews to look forward to?” Yuzu asked, her eyes shifting over where Grimmjow shuffled nervously and Ichigo looked ready to jump him again if the answer was anything but no.

“Um, no, it’s just me.”

“Oh well, and who is this young man?” Yuzu asked, turning towards Diaemus.

“Diaemus Cifer,” he introduced himself and gave her a formal bow.

“How wonderful!” Yuzu exclaimed, pulling the startled boy into an embrace too. “Orihime-chan and Ulquiorra-san had a child! Do you have any brothers or sisters?” she asked, ignoring the snapping and snarling coming from Ichigo. Ajuga thought it was just as well that Ulquiorra wasn’t here. She wasn’t sure she wanted to watch her uncle take on two opponents at once.

“I have no siblings at present,” he answered dutifully, then winced as he realized what he’d just said. Diaemus visibly wilted under the glare her uncle gave the boy. At that Yuzu rolled her eyes and turned around, her hands on her hips and a frown on her face. Off to the left, she thought she saw the guy with the eye patch, Kenpachi, cringe just a bit.

“Ichi-nii, stop that this instant! Come give your niece a proper greeting! Dad would have been all over her by now! You are being very rude, and I will not have it!” Yuzu snapped, causing everyone to jump to attention.

Ichigo, still glaring at Grimmjow, finally walked up to them. Ajuga sized her uncle up as he made his way through the grass, with the one called Rukia trailing behind him. Ajuga wasn’t impressed with his temper and she didn’t think too highly of his willingness to go after her father every few moments. Then again, she’d learned the hard way with Zee that looks could be deceiving. So she scrutinized him. He seemed leery of her aunt, but that was the only ‘weak’ thing about him.

He didn’t look much like her mother, but then neither did Yuzu. The orange hair that just brushed his collar needed a trim and if she looked really closely, she could see the tiny lines that were just beginning to form at the corners of his eyes. It was hard to tell what his age was, but he still seemed ‘older’ to her, and now that he wasn’t trying to pummel her father into the dirt, she could tell there was something very heavy weighing on him and that it only seemed to get stronger when he looked at her.

He was armed, just like any other Shinigami, but he didn’t ‘feel’ like one to her. There was something off about him, something that made the fur on the back of her neck stand up. There was something dangerous, lurking just below the surface. In a way, it was like the feeling she’d gotten when Barragan had tried to grab her, before Diaemus’s father had stepped in to stop it. She was in the presence of something much more powerful than she was and while his body language was stiff and uncertain, Ajuga got the uncomfortable impression that if Kurosaki Ichigo wanted to, he could defeat her without breaking a sweat. Looking off to the side, she saw that her father had gone still, watching her uncle like a hawk, waiting for the slightest sign that the powerful man before her was going to do anything other than talk to her.

_So he knows it_ _’_ _s there too. Was that why Papa went after him?_

“Um, hi,”

He met her awkward greeting with one of his own, an equally uneasy ‘hi,’ scratching his scalp as he looked her up and down. The sense of menace ebbed and she was left with a human male, obviously in his prime, who looked as if he had absolutely no idea with to say to her next. They stared at each other and Ajuga suddenly became aware that after two weeks in captivity with scarcely a chance to bathe or comb her hair, she probably looked frightful. Running her tongue discreetly along the inside of one fang, she also decided that she definitely needed a toothbrush.

“So, uh… how old are you?” Ichigo asked.

“Nine,” she answered.

Her uncle looked her up and down in disbelief.

“Nine? How…why… are you absolutely sure?” he stammered.

Ajuga huffed in annoyance, folded her arms across her chest and rolled her eyes.

“Of course I’m sure! Hollows age twice as fast as humans do,” she explained.

“Oh, okay…that explains…” he gestured at her body, and whatever he was going to say died on the vine.

Now she just felt cross and frowned up at him. Very few in the Seireitei had made a big deal of her looks or her growth rate and the last one she could remember acting this way was Renji, when she was much smaller and had tagged along behind her mother and Orihime. The redhead had been scared and shocked when he’d seen her, but she’d given him a pass on that because he’d just ‘woken up’ and Ajuga knew what _she_ was like when someone yanked her awake out of a sound sleep. It wasn’t _her_ fault her uncle knew nothing about Arrancar. She hoped he wasn’t as thick as that bastard Zee.

“Yeah it does,” she shot back, her hands going to her hips. “So you’re my uncle huh? You don’t look that strong. No wonder Papa won Mama from you so easily.”

Ajuga heard two roars of unbridled laughter erupt nearby. She recognized her father’s raucous bark and the second spilled from the mouth of the one-eyed mountain with the long, spiky hair. The little girl on his shoulder giggled uncontrollably. Most of the others acted as if they wanted to laugh, but were trying to hold it back, favouring her with smiles instead. Her uncle looked like he had swallowed a hornet, before shooting another nasty look at her father.

“So, _you_ got any kids or anything? Any cousins I should know about?”

Ichigo looked back down at her and then at the short woman behind him who smelled as if she’d all but bathed in her uncle’s scent that morning. Ajuga had a few questions about _that_ , such as why he hadn’t introduced her, but since he was doing such a great impression of one of the koi she’d often fished for in Byakuya’s garden ponds, Ajuga guessed that she could let that go for now. The woman only raised one eyebrow at her uncle, but said nothing. Ajuga thought the gesture and Rukia’s cool expression itself, seemed familiar. There were more mysteries here to sniff out than she’d expected.

“Ah, no,” Ichigo managed to get out.

“Nor do I,” her aunt piped up and tucked Ajuga’s arm into hers. “So that means no distractions while we spoil you to make up for all of the years we missed!”

Ichigo looked like he had just been saved from shark-infested waters and Ajuga was relieved his sister had read the situation right and stepped in. This awkward conversation had worn itself out and she didn’t want to continue it.

Her aunt Yuzu was a different story. Ajuga knew she was going to grow to love her aunt. The woman reminded her of her mother, minus her mother’s hard edges and her combat skills. Then again, she was also dying to know why everyone, including Ichigo seemed to be terrified of the idea of a kitchen implement in her hands. Thinking of her mother made her lower lip tremble and her eyes threatened to start watering again. Her aunt must have noticed her wrestling with her self-control, because she squeezed Ajuga’s arm gently and then faced the motley assembly, raising her voice.

“I want to officially offer all you sanctuary and hope that you will partake of our hospitality. I’ll have the staff prepare rooms for you right away. Something dreadful has obviously happened, or you wouldn’t be here. I would suggest we get you each a meal and a hot bath, maybe not in that specify order,” she added as an after thought as she took in their appearances. “Afterwards, you can fill us in on what has been going on in Soul Society and tell us why Shihoin-san brought you here.”

The formal-sounding declaration, as well as the use of Yoruichi’s family title, told Ajuga that there would be no arguing with her aunt. Not that she wanted to. A shower and some real food sounded wonderful right now, and as she expected, no one protested. The pretty woman patted her hand one more time and went to speak with Nemu, Renji and Szayel, bowing respectfully to the three at first and then giving Nemu a sympathetic hug as well, which the other, usually silent woman returned. The members of Szayel’s little pack looked downtrodden and deeply upset over their inability to retrieve the twins. She didn’t blame them. The two men were especially crestfallen, neither of them looking at one another. Vindula and Abisara’s absence was yet another dark cloud hovering over them and yet another reason for her to hate ‘Kami’ all the more.

The next time she saw Aizen, Ajuga vowed, it would be to sink her claws into his face.

What little conversation there was fizzled out as Yuzu turned and led them through the orchard to a stone path that she indicated led towards her house. Ajuga hoped it was big enough to house them all. There was certainly enough land surrounding it. The newcomers and the collected Escapees walked in silence for a good two minutes before someone finally broke it.

“Where is Nel?” Renji asked hesitantly.

At that, all of those who had spent the last fifteen years eluding capture came to a halt and looked at one another uneasily. No one answered him. Ajuga’s eyes went from unfamiliar face to unfamiliar face and for some reason their expressions became furtive. The young hybrid wondered if there was supposed to be someone else with them. From their collective reaction, she guessed that they were one person short of a full party and tried to remember each of the drawings she’d seen on the posters in Jushiro and Nanao’s offices over the years.

Renji saw the looks they gave one another as well. Their lack of an answer only served to return him to the agitated state he’d been in when he’d marched through the gate.

“Renji… she’s…” the small, slender one called Rukia began, her eyes apologetic, only to falter when Ajuga’s uncle put a restraining hand on her shoulder. Ajuga didn’t miss the squeeze he gave that shoulder either, or the way he silently shook his head.

“Oh, she’s with my husband, upstairs, in the east wing,” her Aunt Yuzu replied, trying to diffuse the tension, though even her ebullient voice sounded a bit subdued. “You see, he’s a well-regarded physician. It was such an unusual case and there’s no one else qualified to handle something like this, so they brought her here, so that he could help her…”

“Husband?” Hana interjected, her friend’s eyes getting a bit bigger. “You got _married_ , Yuzu-chan?”

If the blonde woman had a reply prepared, Renji’s venomous outburst prevented her from elaborating on her marital status. Fresh terror and a look of betrayal filled the tattooed Shinigami’s eyes as the redhead finally lost the last of his patience.

“You lying bitch!” he growled through clenched teeth, flinging the invective at Yoruichi for some reason. Then he turned and made for the house at top speed down the path through the trees. The dark-skinned woman, in turn, folded her arms across her chest and watched him go. Her mouth set itself into a thin, unhappy line at the insult, but she made no move to follow Renji as he disappeared. She also said nothing in her defence. Neither did any of the others, though Szayel did toss a concerned look Grimmjow’s way. Her father rolled his eyes.

“He’s still got a Claim on him, so she can’t be all _that_ bad off,” he growled irritably.

Yuzu brought her fingertips to her lips, her distress evident. “Oh no. I think I just made things worse!”

The giant with the missing eye shrugged and then scratched his chin with the hand that wasn’t holding his jagged-edged Zanpakuto, even as Ajuga tried to puzzle out why Renji wouldn’t have a Claim. Szayel was standing right there after all.

“Not like he wouldn’t ‘a found out what happened eventually,” the brute muttered before the one named Hachi cleared his throat and pressed his chubby hands together in a Buddha-esque manner. It seemed to be some attention-getting signal, because everyone present gave him theirs immediately, even Yoruichi.

“Be that as it may, it is _not_ our place to say anything, per Nel’s wishes with regard to her mate,” he stated, all but shaking a fat finger at the rest of them in admonishment. “Furthermore, I agree with our hostess. We’re _all_ ready for some sustenance. _I_ certainly look forward to any meal which you had a hand in preparing, my dear Yuzu-chan.”

_Mate?_

Ajuga stared at the rotund gentleman with the closely cropped, pink hair and the serene demeanour as he patted his vast stomach. He resumed walking at a sedate pace, in the same direction Renji had taken, with his hands clasped behind him as if nothing was wrong. The girl felt her jaw drop and to her right, she noticed that Hana’s had as well. The announcement had even confused Diaemus, who frowned and turned to Szayel. His green eyes went from perplexed to deeply suspicious as he narrowed them at the scientist.

“Szay?!” Ajuga screeched as she took in Szayel’s suddenly sheepish, uncomfortable grimace. One of his boots began to trace small nervous patterns in the grass beneath his feet.

“Err, ah… surprise?”


	59. Like Father Like Son

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter written primarily by Blackfox.

_This has to be a nightmare_.

In the space of less than one horrible hour, Renji had lost two of the three things he cherished most in this or any other Realm. If the looks on the faces of those who spent the majority of their time with her were indicative of Nel’s wellbeing, something was dreadfully wrong with the third. As he dashed up the steps leading to what he presumed was the front door, he decided he’d also had enough bullshit for one day.

Yanking open the heavy wooden door, he barrelled through the entrance and found himself in the middle of a Western-style foyer, replete with polished wooden floors so shiny that the sunlight filtering in from the half-moon window above the door temporarily blinded him. A wide staircase of equally-polished oak, or maybe maple, lay before him, leading to the second floor. Two sets of double doors flanked him and he guessed that those led to other areas of the manor. The stairway was what he needed, if what the grown woman who claimed to be Yuzu had said was right.

_Why would Nel need a doctor? Is she sick? Was she hurt? Did they run into a patrol? Was there an accident?_

The Swarm had made incursions here in the Living World too. She was an Espada and while she couldn’t help the Shinigami on this side of the Dangai with the thankless task of trying to keep the Realms balanced via purifying souls, she _could_ fight the Swarm itself. He’d seen what the beetles could do with a well-aimed spray of acid and Renji cringed at the idea that she’d taken damage from something like that.

“East wing… east wing…” he found himself muttering and decided that it really didn’t matter. He’d just open every bloody room in the place until he found her. Using Shunpo, he took the stairs four at a time, until he reached the upper landing, only to face a choice between two corridors. He also badly startled someone dressed in a maid’s outfit, her arms laden with a stack of towels. The fact she could see him, without a gigai didn’t really register until he’d moved directly in front of her. Her magenta-colored pigtails bounced as she drew back in alarm at the sight of him.

“Who…?” she shrieked, almost losing her grip on the clean laundry she carried. Renji growled but he was past the point of caring what anyone, living or not, thought.

“Nel Tu Odelschwanck. Tell me where she is. Now!” he demanded, sounding more menacing than he intended. She took a step back, taking in the sword at his side, the bug guts smearing his torn uniform and his generally filthy state, but to his surprise, she shook her head and fixed him with a defiant glare. She also held the towels before her like a white, fluffy shield, as if she could ward off his disreputable appearance with them alone.

“I’ll not tell you anything if you’re going to hurt Odelschwanck-san, Shinigami!”

Confusion replaced the anger on his features as she transferred the terrycloth to one hand. She made a fist with the other, which she shook at him. Before Renji could react, she’d pointed one finger less than an inch from his nose, forcing him to look cross-eyed at it. There was something menacing about the way she held that digit out that made him want to back away.

“And who are _you_ to be gallivanting around the Master’s house like this? Your manners are deplorable, and you reek to high heaven! I should drag you out to the garden and turn the hose on you like the unwashed dog you…”

A door about midway down the left hallway had opened while the hired help had been busy dressing him down and a distinctly male voice interrupted her tongue-lashing.

“That will be enough, Riruka-chan. Please, finish what you were doing. I will deal with this.”

Both of them turned to see a man with silver hair, wearing an expensive gray suit and a white lab coat over it, emerge from one of the rooms. He had both a doctor’s bag and a slightly irritated expression on his person, closing the door behind him with a sigh. Narrow blue eyes regarded the maid and Renji from behind a pair of spectacles, which he reached up and adjusted.

The maid immediately gave the gentleman a bow from the waist, her attitude going from outraged to deferential in less than a second.

“Yes, sir.”

“Once you’ve completed restocking the guest rooms, I’m sure my wife will need help with the luncheon preparations. I fear we have another round of unexpected guests on our hands.”

“Of course, sir!”

Giving Renji a disdainful sniff and a dirty look, she pivoted on her heel and flounced off down the opposite hallway, her long pigtails swishing behind her as she muttered something about ‘the nerve of some people.’ The woman even managed to make the ‘click’ of the doors to the opposite wing settling back into place sound affronted. Renji decided to dismiss the angry maid and closed the distance between himself and the man he presumed to be both Yuzu’s husband and Nel’s physician. However, when he reached for the door handle, he found that the good doctor had clamped his free hand down on Renji’s wrist, preventing him from opening it.

For a man who, at close range, looked as if he was rapidly closing in on his sixth decade, his grip was surprisingly strong. His expression was also as cold as the brief bath Renji had taken over two days ago.

“Might I inquire what business you have with Odelschwanck-san, Shinigami?”

Renji, at the end of his rope and desperate for an answer, pulled his hand away and reached for Zabimaru’s hilt, determined to force his way through the door if he had to, doctor or no doctor.

The next thing he knew, a flash of silver and blue fell from the man’s wrist and something he hadn’t seen in fifteen years materialized out of thin air, as close to his nose as the maid’s fingertip had been and burning a thousand times brighter. He could even hear the sizzle of the air where the collected reishi of the shaft and the white bow came together, the tip of the bolt aimed at his throat.

Renji backed away and his fingers dropped to his side as he stared at the weapon in the doctor’s right hand. It had taken shape so quickly, and the man hadn’t even dropped the bag.

_A Quincy_ _…_ _a real Quincy_ _…_ he repeated over and over in his head, not quite believing what he was seeing.

“I…” he stammered, his brain going in all sort of strange directions as he stared at what could possibly be his imminent death, “I’m… I’m Nel’s mate. I’m Abarai Renji…”

One of the doctor’s pale eyebrows went up a fraction of an inch, but the arrow never wavered.

“I see,” he said quietly. “I would suggest that you abandon all ideas of talking with your ‘mate’ until we’ve had a chance to engage in what I hope will be a polite and violence-free conversation. You and I have a few personal things to discuss, Abarai-san and I would prefer to keep our discourse civilized.”

With no other options, Renji nodded weakly. He’d seen, firsthand, what those bolts could do. Eventually, the physician let go of his bow and the reishi dissolved as quickly as his fingers had summoned it. Shinigami and Quincy regarded one another for a long moment before the silver-haired man set his bag down and reached up to pluck his glasses from his nose. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled a monogrammed handkerchief from it and gave each lens a quick rub. Renji watched this small gesture, knowing he’d seen it before but unable to place it. He knew it wasn’t from having to watch Szayel constantly fiddling with his cracked mask and Abisara thankfully hadn’t developed the habit.

The thought of Szayel and Abisara, juxtaposed with the living Quincy before him, sent his train of thought barrelling down a track he’d forgotten existed.

“You… were you the one who invaded Los Noches?” He blurted the question out without really thinking, but Nel had mentioned that the Quincy she’d helped was ‘intimidating’ and it _was_ an accurate description of the man in front of him. The doctor gave Renji a measured look that seemed to size Renji up and find him somehow wanting. Then he carefully folded the handkerchief and tucked it back into his pocket, the corner sticking up at a perfect, ninety-degree angle.

“I find ‘invaded’ to be a loaded term. I prefer ‘liberated.’ In either case, I merely retrieved family property… my son’s things, to be precise.”

Renji mentally replayed what the physician said a few times before the words truly registered.

_Son?_

_His son_ _’_ _s things?_

Reaching into his suit pocket, the older man retrieved a business card from a thin, silver case and presented it to Renji, who took it without ever letting his eyes leave the physician’s face. Fingers trembling, he held the bit of cardstock, but he didn’t need to read it to know the identity of the man standing before him.

_This is Uryuu_ _’_ _s father. Oh, shit_ _…_ _I was right. That load of baloney I told Aizen was fucking right all along_ _…_

He refrained from saying any of that, only now seeing the resemblance the older man bore to the teenager he’d once called a comrade.

“How… how did… I mean, Aizen killed everyone in Karakura and the hospital that Uryuu said belonged to his father was there…”

The Quincy, one _Ishida Ryuuken, M.D_. if the name on the card was real, folded his arms across his chest, his stance conveying his distaste.

“I, and the patients who were under my care at the time, are alive today because I wasn’t foolish enough to put my faith in Urahara Kisuke’s assertions that a fifteen-year-old boy, no matter how gifted, had the wherewithal to stop _your_ renegade Taichou from creating the O-ken. As the hospital administrator, I ordered the evacuation of patients to medical facilities well outside the boundaries indicated by the late Urahara-san. I then closed the hospital with the excuse of ‘mold mitigation’ and ‘suggested’ to my staff that they follow our patients to their new, temporary facilities to provide assistance. Despite these efforts, I still lost several excellent people who chose not to heed my warning and remained in Karakura.”

Those blue eyes grew even chillier and his tone more scathing.

“In addition, unlike Urahara Kisuke, I’m not a fan of gambling with other people’s lives.”

Then he turned his head to look out of one of the many windows lining the hallway, the noon light reflecting briefly on the lenses of his glasses and hiding his eyes from view.

“Now, as to my business with you...”

Renji’s breathing became a hair shallower at that. This human had had enough power to march into one of the Seventh Espada’s most secure storage facilities, had smashed through any and all obstacles he’d found and had made off with priceless Quincy weaponry without being detected. That same human stood between him and Nel, with no sign of getting out of the way and he would have to remain where he was, if he didn’t want to end up a pincushion.

“Several years ago, I discovered that someone had carved my son’s name on our family grave marker. A closer inspection revealed that the same person responsible for the etching had interred a container of ashes in the family plot. It took a few months before I could arrange some time with Lady Shihoin to discuss the issue, but when I broached the topic, she told me of the spy her little band of refugees had set up within the Seireitei. They also told me that said spy had made a bargain with the Espada who had cached my son’s body. I believe that it was ‘servitude in exchange for an honourable burial?’”

Suddenly, his mouth and throat seemed far too dry and Renji swallowed a few times. The conversation he and Szayel once had in that conference room had occurred so long ago and they’d made that agreement with such hostility… So much had changed in the intervening years that he’d nearly forgotten what kind of a risk he’d been asking Szayel to take. At the time, he hadn’t given much thought to what might happen if Aizen had gotten wind of their deal. Then again, Uryuu had deserved a proper laying-to-rest, at least physically.

Seeing Renji’s faint, shaky nod, the elder Ishida let out a breath and closed his eyes. Then, he lowered his arms to his sides and the last Quincy proceeded to give the Shinigami a deep, respectful bow.

“Abarai Renji, I thank you for what you have done for my family and for my son’s honour. In addition, I ask that you accept my apology for the consequences you suffered due to my actions in Hueco Mundo.”

He thought of the scars marring his back, the raised red lines a testament to his success in redirecting Aizen’s vengeful attentions. He also thought back to the sound of Uryuu’s last words, spoken in excruciating pain and with unbreakable pride. Renji wanted to stop the physician, to open his mouth and tell him that Ishida Ryuuken owed him nothing, when the other picked up where he’d left off, sounding rueful.

“I find myself in the unwelcome position of, yet again, being indebted to a Shinigami. As such, please accept the care I have given Odelschwanck-san for the last several months as well as the care I will continue to provide my patient in the future, as a way of repaying you.”

_Months? She_ _’_ _s been ailing for months?_ Renji ground his teeth together. He would _kill_ Yoruichi for lying to his face, for telling him the woman he loved was fine when she’d needed a doctor’s care all this time. He’d throttle her in whatever form she happened to be wearing once he could spare the time.

“I must warn you… I’m aware of her link with you as well as what that link entails. I suggest that you keep your emotions steady while you’re around her. I will not tolerate you distressing a patient of mine and causing her complications. I have grown fond of the young lady, despite her ‘interesting heritage.’ If she suffers in your presence, I will remove you, not only from her room, but also from this house and from the grounds. Continue to be a problem while you are under my roof, Shinigami, and I will set both the hounds and/or the head of my domestic staff, Riruka-san, upon you. You can decide which of those you ought to fear more. Are we clear?”

“Y… yes… please… please tell me what’s wrong! Was she hurt and if she was, how badly? Is she sick? Is there anything I can do… please… just…?” he pleaded. A strange look passed over Ishida-san’s face as he took in the extent of Renji’s despair, his dishevelled and grungy appearance and once again, he reached up and rubbed his forehead.

“Let me guess… none of the others Odelschwanck-san calls friends have said anything to you, have they?”

“No, they…”

The irritated expression was back and had deepened into vexation.

“Idiots. It seems they’re bound and determined to obey Odelschwanck-san’s request to the letter then, no matter what sort of awkwardness doing so creates. Under normal circumstances, I would agree with them, but I can hardly call your appearance here today ‘normal,’ can I?”

Renji wasn’t sure if that was an actual question or a rhetorical one. Instead, he looked at the door. Nel was on the other side of it and he would make any promise, do anything he had to, to be able to open it.

“I understand, sir,” he whispered. “Whatever it is… I’ll do what I can for her.”

The Quincy gazed at him for another few moments before he seemed to make up his mind about something. Reaching down, he retrieved his bag and checked the clasp, then tucked the cross beneath the cuff of his sleeve. Brushing an invisible speck of dirt from his lab coat, he looked back up at Renji and then shifted weary eyes to a point somewhere in the hall behind the Shinigami.

“I believe you, Abarai-san. Oh, and if I may offer a word of advice?”

Bitterness tinged the man’s voice as he squared his shoulders.

“I made many mistakes when I was younger, particularly with regard to my son. I was not the best of fathers, and I failed…Uryuu… in more ways than one. My last words to him, after I restored his Quincy powers, were orders to refrain from having anything to do with anyone associated with the Shinigami. I regret returning them to him, but at the time…”

“…he was proud of his talents, of who he was, of _what_ he was,” Renji interjected.

The doctor’s sharp gaze cut into him, but the Quincy said nothing and Renji took that as a sign he wouldn’t get an arrow through the face if he finished what he had to say.

“The truth is, sir, he made a bargain with another and it’s the only reason I’m standing here. The bargain _I_ made was to pay Uryuu back. He saved two lives by doing so and he was a proud Quincy until the end. I was honoured to know him, Ishida-san, despite our differences, and I was honoured to fight alongside him.”

This time it was Renji dipping his head and bending his back. When he straightened, he found the man’s eyes had softened, or at least, they were no longer as stony as they had been.

“I was never ‘not’ proud of him, Abarai-san,” Ishida Ryuuken told him quietly. “However, instilling pride is not a father’s _only_ obligation. Please try to remember that.”

Ishida Ryuuken gave another small bow and stepped around him, eyes straight ahead. A whiff of cigarette smoke made his nose twitch as the Quincy retreated, leaving Renji bewildered. When the physician turned and began to make his way down the staircase to the first floor, the Shinigami let out a deep breath and tried to figure out why Uryuu’s father, a cold, reserved individual from what Uryuu had told him, would share something so personal with a man he’d just met and a Shinigami to boot.

_Obligation?_

At that point, he received a nudge from Zabimaru, jolting him and reminding him that there were no longer any obstacles between him and the door handle. Spinning around, he reached for it, twisted the thing and pulled it open, trying not to wrench it from its hinges in his eagerness.

The light in this room was far more subdued than the bright, sunlit hallway, but there was enough of it to let him see the woman sitting on the Western-style bed, her back to the headboard. Someone had given her a white yukata five sizes too large for her, the cloth puddled around her body. She looked up as he paused in the doorway, his arm braced against the frame. He saw a mixture of joy and abject fear blossom in her eyes and then she wordlessly lifted both arms up, the collar of the oversized garment slipping from one shoulder, in invitation. Two seconds later, he was in them, crawling onto the bed and into her embrace. Renji hadn’t seen her since October, when he’d handed her his report and dragged out their parting kiss for as long as he dared, only sending her back through the cube’s sliding door after he’d frantically taken her a third time and her nails had left shallow, moon-shaped marks on his backside.

“Nel… love… what happened?” he started in, failing to keep the panic he felt from showing.

She tilted her head up and he was suddenly struck dumb as she kissed him thoroughly, keeping his mouth too busy for speech. She didn’t seem to care that he looked as if he’d just wandered in from a war zone, or that he hadn’t seen soap and water in days. Her hands went to his hair and she pulled her fingers through the tangled, scarlet mess, lightly running her nails over his scalp in a gesture she’d used in the past to soothe him, before they came to rest on his shoulders. Eventually, he had to break away to breathe properly, leaving him dazed.

“I should ask you that,” she replied softly, fear in her words. “Why are you here and why… why are Szayel and Grimmjow here? Who are the others? Something terrible has happened, hasn’t it? Ishida-san told me to stay in here until he could find out why he had visitors and why…”

Renji cupped her face, running his thumbs across the mark that spanned her nose and then brought his forehead to rest against hers, interrupting her with a short press of his lips against hers, closing his eyes and inhaling her scent.

“I’ll tell you, but you have to tell me why you’re sick! Is there anything I can do? If there is, name it!” he begged. “I… I had to leave the twins behind. Nel, I can’t lose you too…”

He felt her fingers tighten in his uniform for a moment, clutching the fabric, and then her left hand reached for his right, pulling it gently from her cheek. Renji’s eyes opened to find her looking at him with a somewhat chagrined expression. Bringing his hand down to the voluminous folds of the yukata that surrounded her, she sat up and slid his hand beneath the band of fabric that served to trim the front edged of it, presumably to hold her by the waist…

…only to have him discover that she no longer had one. Instead, his fingers crept over her much larger, swollen belly, the warm, smooth skin stretched taut beneath the palm of his hand.

Later, he would declare that both his brain and his lungs took that opportunity to completely shut down, pack their bags, and bid him a fond farewell with a promise to write if they found work. His other hand, however, chose to help its twin push open the concealing folds to reveal Nel’s very large, _very_ pregnant midsection. Renji could only stare at it, at her, dumbfounded. Eventually, her fingers moved to cover his, at around the same time his vision began to go a bit gray around the edges.

“Renji-kun… Breathe!”

Perhaps, he thought, the universe could forgive him for gaping blankly at the sight. He’d gone from the equivalent of a forced march at dawn, directly in the middle of a pitched battle, had a shape-shifting noble order him into the Royal Realm by using her claws on him and had been commanded to defect without being able to go back to save his young charges. He’d been frightened out of his wits at the idea that there was something wrong with his mate. He’d just had a Quincy’s lethal arrow aimed at his heart. This day had been far too eventful for his liking, it was barely noon and he wanted to crawl beneath the bed he was sitting on and hide for a few hours, in the dark. He’d at least stay until the world started making sense again, or until the emotional rollercoaster he’d been on came to a stop.

The order to breathe, on the other hand, was Claim-enforced and suddenly his lungs were back. He gulped air until he was panting, the rush of oxygen dispelling the fog that had filled his head. The other thing that brought his attention back into sharp focus was a ‘thump’ of something hitting his right palm and the simultaneous gasp Nel gave as she pressed his hand over it.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, sounding as if whatever was going on in there involved a game of futsal. It certainly felt like it, he decided, as a second kick or elbowing followed the first, which elicited another gasp, but Renji wasn’t sure if Nel or he had been the one to make it.

“How…?” he managed to croak and found her frowning at him.

“I would think that would be obvious, Renji. You were there after all.”

She reached up and tentatively touched his cheek, her pretty, platinum-coloured eyes taking in his still-stunned expression.

“Are you angry?”

“Huh?” he asked with all the keen intelligence of a steamed turnip.

“Are you… not happy about… this…?” Nel asked.

In answer, he removed his hands from her bare belly and surged forward, pushing her down against the pillows. This time he kissed her forcefully, hungrily, desperately, tracing her jawline with his fingertips, ghosting them down her neck and her exposed collarbone before fumbling for one of her hands and clasping it tightly.

“No… no… I’m not angry. Why would I be angry? Amazed and terrified maybe, but not angry,” he told her.

When she let out a long breath and relaxed back against the bedding, he knew then that he wasn’t the only one engulfed in worries. Stretching out next to her, he propped himself up on the hand that wasn’t holding hers.

“Okay, so … when did you find out?”

She blushed and looked away.

“The first week in December. Hiyori-chan and Yachiru-chan made dinner one night and it was all I could do to keep it down. I began to get nauseous at strange times, and yet, I was always hungry and tired. A few weeks later, I fainted and Yoruichi-san told me that she was taking me to Ishida-san, to see what was wrong. When he told me I was pregnant, I didn’t know what to do. We were in Tokyo, in Shibuya and we’d only been in that particular safe house for a week or two. We’d moved around often, up until that point, but that hiding spot is small. Yuzu-chan, once she found out, ordered her husband to let us stay here, for as long as I’d need a doctor. There isn’t anyone else we could go to and he did help Ichigo when he needed that surgery three years ago.”

“Surgery?”

“Oh, yes. His appendix almost ruptured. He was fine in the morning, but by nightfall, he was on the floor, curled up and in pain. Ichigo-kun needed a real doctor, not Kido, so we brought him here. Ishida-san said he’d perform the surgery, but he asked for payment in return.”

Renji frowned and then remembered the last time they’d spoken about her part in what happened in Los Noches. He’d been a bit distracted, as he’d been balls-deep in her at the time.

“So…you helped him get his son’s things back by opening a Garganta into Hueco Mundo for him.”

“In exchange for taking out Ichigo’s appendix, yes.”

_Well, that makes sense_ , he thought and sighed. _It would beat going to a hospital and having Aizen track them down that way._

“Renji-kun, I _did_ try to get word to you. Yoruichi said she was going to make another run to the Seireitei, to talk to Karin-chan. She took Hiyori-chan with her, because she also had other things she needed to do that night and Hiyori-chan knew some of the people on the list you gave us, from before Central 46 exiled her. She and Yoruichi-san were going to stay with them for a day and try to get in touch with Kukaku-sama and Yoruichi would have let Karin know to tell you that…”

“…that we’re having a child,” Renji finished, reaching out and returning his hand to her stomach. He pushed all of his other cares to the side. He could deal with them later and Ishida Ryuuken’s stern warning, to keep his emotions under control while he was with her, suddenly seemed of utmost importance. “But, I never got the message.”

Nel reached up and chose that moment to slide his headband from around his head and to undo the tie holding his hopelessly snarled hair in its topknot. The familiar ritual between them made him scoot closer, to let her trace the black lines on his forehead with her fingers while she finished her explanation.

“That’s because they never made it to the Ukitake Estate. They accidentally ran into the First that night and Hiyori and Lilynette got into a fight. Then Hana showed up and things got really ugly and Yoruichi decided that it would be best to abandon the mission and leave before anyone else could find out they were there.”

His mind raced over exactly how many ways that little expedition could have blown up in the two women’s faces and his stomach did somersaults at the idea of what might have happened had Starrk been of a mind to capture the two. Had Starrk simply let them go? He’d have to ask Hana later what had happened.

“That was too big of a risk, Nel!”

“But you deserved to at least know!” she countered and then closed her eyes, nibbling her bottom lip. “After that, Yoruichi decided that she needed to avoid going to the Seireitei for a while. She’d used that route more than enough times and she said that while it wasn’t all that hard to hide from the Second Espada, Starrk and Lilynette are a different story.”

Gently letting his fingers trace circles on a small patch of her skin and frowning, he also admitted it might have been risky for another reason, one that had nothing to do with Arrancar patrols. If that message had gotten to him, he wasn’t sure what he would have done. It was one thing to know that if circumstances allowed, she would come back in time to refresh his Claim. It would have been something else entirely if he’d known she had to deal with the pregnancy on her own. While he’d been taking care of Szayel’s cubs as if they were his, Nel would have had to struggle through the vagaries of a hybrid pregnancy without him. The knowledge would have torn him in two, between staying, to keep up with the work of gathering information for Yoruichi as well as protecting and caring for the twins and trying to find a way to get to the Living World, to his mate and his unborn child.

It was ironic, he considered, how things had worked out. He also thought, a bit regretfully, that he owed Shihoin Yoruichi more than just a standard apology. Nel must have felt the conflict within him, because she pushed up a little and caught his lips in another kiss that managed to devolve into something on the outskirts of decent. When he groaned her name and pulled away, she nipped him on his scruffy chin.

“Why did you think I was ill?” she asked and he rubbed the back of his neck, almost embarrassed now.

“Ah, you see… well, everyone kind of clammed up when I asked where you were and they wouldn’t explain what was going on. Then Ichigo’s little sister said you were with her husband the doctor...”

Another understanding look crossed her face, along with a little bit of guilt.

“Well… I did tell them that, after the failed attempt to get the message to you, I would be the one to tell you, the next time I saw you. I just don’t know if the portal would have allowed me to bring him with me.”

Renji blinked and then scrambled up, until he leaned over her, shocked that she would ever consider such a thing.

“Taking a baby through the Dangai? Nel, that’s crazy! No! I… wait… _him_? You mean…”

He could feel his eyes going wider by the second as she nodded and the Quincy physician’s parting words slammed into him. He’d heard Szayel make similar, if less veiled comments to a number of other Arrancar who had trooped into the Science and Research Division in the last two weeks. Renji hadn’t thought that he would number among them.

“Ishida-san did a lot of tests, mostly because this is the first hybrid pregnancy he’s ever seen. He said we’re having a boy and he thinks I’m due in mid-May, but he can’t be certain. Did… did you want it to be a surprise?”

The redhead rolled his eyes at that but took the opportunity to kiss her again.

“Trust me, Nel, it’s a surprise,” he told her and then returned his hand to the spot where he’d first felt his child, his _son_ , kick. “Is he healthy? Have _you_ had any complications?”

She shook her head, strands of her turquoise hair whispering against the cotton of the pillowcases.

“He is, and so far, I don’t think so, other than the nausea that comes and goes and the endless trips to the bathroom. The pictures Ishida-san took, with the machine in the laboratory downstairs are…” she trailed off, as if looking for the right words to describe their child. “Unusual.”

Now it was Renji’s turn to smile. He took Nel’s hand and laced their fingers together before returning both to the side of her belly and stroking the skin there with his thumb.

“Ajuga and Diaemus look a bit like their fathers’ Resurreccións,” he said, trying to sound reassuring. “I’m sure it’s the same thing. Heaven help the kid if he takes after Zabimaru though. Abisara and Vindula…”

The news of his impending son had temporarily pushed everything else aside, but as he said their names, picturing the small boy that was almost an identical copy of Szayel and his innocent little sister he found that his tongue wouldn’t work and his throat refused to make a sound. Gripping her hand even tighter, Renji lowered his head. Shame and a sense of helplessness chased away the happiness at finding nothing wrong with his mate that two more months wouldn’t cure.

_I just left them_ _…_ _Aizen won_ _’_ _t waste any time getting his hands on them, if the Numeros don_ _’_ _t do that first,_ he castigated himself, hating the fact he hadn’t been able to disobey Karin’s orders. That damned Garganta-creating device had been something he was supposed to use to get the twins to safety, not use to save himself. He understood that, on a rational level if hadn’t done what Karin told him, Aizen would have slaughtered everyone in the Throne room. Nevertheless, he’d made pledges to those children, like promising to protect them and to bring their mother and father home from the battle. What kind of future could he promise his own son if he couldn’t keep the commitments he’d already made?

Nel’s free hand tilted his chin up, forcing him to look at her with misery-filled eyes.

“It’s your turn now, Renji. You’re dirty, exhausted, your uniform is torn up and I want to know why. Why are there two Espada here? Why are _you_ here, when you should be in the Seireitei?”

Feeling lower than the soles his tabi, Renji told her what he knew, beginning with Ajuga’s abduction and ending with the mad dash from the Royal Realm to what tuned out to be the Ishida family manor. Nel listened intently, growing more concerned the longer he spoke. When he was done, she smoothed back his hair, pulled him against her, in as much as her belly would allow, and threw her bare leg over his.

“Oh, Renji, are you still beating yourself up over things that aren’t your fault? If you want to be angry,” she said softly, “be angry with me. It’s my Claim that made you obey Karin… but I’m glad that it did. Otherwise…”

_Otherwise,_ Renji silently completed her sentence in his head, _I_ _’_ _d be nothing but a corpse on the marble floor of the Spirit King_ _’_ _s Throne room._

‘ _How many times, fool, must I remind you that a dead hand cannot strike a vengeful blow?_ _’_

_‘_ _The ape_ _’_ _ssss right,_ _’_ he heard the second half of his Zanpakuto hiss at him. Startled, Renji realized that his sword had shifted and the hilt now lay against his ichor-smeared stomach, the wrappings in contact with his skin. Even sheathed, Zabimaru felt it necessary to kick him. _‘_ _Ssstop with the sssniveling!_ _’_

“With whom did you leave them?” Nel asked and Renji wrenched his attention back to her.

“Starrk and Ukitake-Taichou. Starrk’s been… I suppose ‘stepping up’ would be a good way of putting it. He considers Grimmjow and Karin ‘pack members.’ He intervened when Aizen got his hands on Szayel the last time. He was the only one I could think go to when Szayel didn’t come back from the Palace.”

Nel blinked in surprise, and then her expression turned thoughtful. Leaning forward, she placed a kiss on the side of his mouth and stroked his cheek.

“If Starrk has them, they’re as safe as they can be. My impression of the Primera, when I was an Espada, was that he was very sleepy… and very, very lonely. If he considers Szayel and his family ‘his,’ then he won’t let anything happen to them.” She added the next bit reluctantly, “I supposed that if there was anyone stronger than myself who stood a chance of Claiming me, I’d object to Starrk the least.”

Renji frowned, not liking the idea of Starrk anywhere near Nel. She must have sensed the uneasy jealousy coming from him, because she tapped his forehead with a fingertip and changed the subject.

“You helped raise them, right?”

“Yes, but…”

“You’ve taught them what you could, about staying safe?”

Had he? He wasn’t sure if two children, who had few real defences other than their Hierros and a working knowledge of some of the more toxic and dangerous experiments going on the lower laboratories, would be able to elude the more aggressive Numeros, let alone fiends like Barragan or Aizen. Last spring’s run-in with the two Numeros in the park had taught him that much. He’d done his best, but they were still far too young and without Renji by their side to act as a shield, they were as good as Claim bait.

“I don’t know. That’s the worst part, not knowing. If I could, I’d go back and get them, Nel. I’d find a way… mmph!”

This time, the kiss she used to cut him off was insistent, included far more tongue and reminded him of just how many months it had been since he’d last held her. By the time she was done, his heart rate had doubled.

“Now you know what it was like for me to leave you in the Seireitei, for months on end,” she whispered. “I had to trust that you’d be able to take care of yourself, until we met again. You’ve no idea how hard it was to walk away from _you_.”

The confession surprised him, as did the comparison.

“I’m not a child, Nel. I’m a trained Shinigami…”

“…and under Aizen’s scrutiny, because of Szayel,” she shot back and Renji soon found he was on all fours, hovering over her while she twined her arms around his neck, gazing up at him earnestly, almost imploringly. Not sure if he’d done so because she’d given him a silent Claim-backed command, he stared down at her pretty face, framed by waves of her outlandishly coloured hair. “I need you here now. Staying behind would have led to your death. You can’t go back and I… _we_ need you with _us_!”

He’d never before heard her beg like this but she’d probably also received every violent emotion going through him the moment he’d set foot in the orchard. She had to know how much he wanted to return to the Seireitei for the children versus having to stay here until they and the rest of the Escapees could figure out what to do about this new, unfortunate development. She was asking him to make a choice, a nearly impossible one, between obligations, one long-standing and the other an unexpected discovery.

What floored him was that Nel wasn’t trying to force him to stay via the link between them. She was asking. As she had every time she’d cast her reiatsu around him, she would let him make the decision on his own.

Renji closed his eyes and that’s when Ishida Ryuuken’s words came back to haunt him a second time.

He knew Szayel and Nemu, probably better than anyone else save for Karin. The two would come up with some plan to get to their cubs and hopefully, to Karin. If Aizen did find a way around Starrk, it would be to use the twins as bait for both Szayel, and probably for him as well. The sonofabitch would need them alive and well to play that game.

Taking a deep breath, he reluctantly made his decision. Renji pulled back and brought Nel with him, until they both sat upright in the middle of a somewhat rumpled and stained bed, thanks to the ichor and the dirt he and his uniform sported. Her once-white yukata wasn’t much better. He slid one hand up to her hip and the other he let rest on her distended abdomen.

“May, huh? That’s not far off.”

She slowly nodded and he let himself smile once again before descending on her lips like a man dying of thirst. Gods, she tasted good and he would have happily kept at it when a thought occurred to him. He let his eyes travel to the six squares the sunshine made on the floor and noted that they’d moved a bit since he’d stormed through the door.

“I think… I think I’ve actually been in this room for more than an hour,” he declared, then found himself grinning down at her. The significance of that wasn’t lost on the woman in his arms, as she smiled back and he couldn’t help adding, “Do you think we should try for another?”

Finally, she seemed to notice just what sad shape he was in, because her nose wrinkled.

“You smell terrible. How long has it been since you’ve had a proper bath?”

When he had to put some real thought into that, she carefully moved off of the bed, its linens by now a lost cause and stood up, bringing him with her. The ridiculously outsized robe threatened to fall from her, despite the tie wrapped around her and he frowned as she tried to keep it on by tugging the collar.

“Who in the world gave _that_ to you?” he asked, eyeing it critically.

“Oh, Hachi-kun let me borrow one of his, since none of the other girls have anything that will fit me anymore… not that they would have fit anyway. For some reason, breakfast didn’t agree with me and mine is in the laundry.”

In one move, Renji undid the tie and the nearly useless circus tent of a thing was a puddle of white fabric around her calves. One of her hands went to cover her breasts, but he caught her wrist and moved it away, wanting to see her fully in the early afternoon light. The only garment left on her was an obscenely skimpy pair of lacy white underwear. He’d never seen her wear anything like them, but then, when they’d met in the past, underwear hadn’t been a part of her wardrobe and would only have served as a distraction and a waste of time. The Shinigami’s fingers eased them down over her legs to join the yukata.

“Unbelievable,” he murmured in awe, taking in the sight of her smooth skin, the blush that coloured her cheeks and the way she’d filled out to accommodate their growing son. “Kami, you’re beautiful.”

Her blush deepened, to a lovely magenta.

“I’m also a mess. You got me dirty.”

It sounded more like a seductive come-on than an accusation. Renji decided to plead guilty anyway.

“Is there somewhere we can wash up?”

Nel stepped over the robe, her bare feet making no sound on the wood floor and began to divest him of the clothing he’d worn for almost a week, until he was nearly as naked as she was. She even placed Zabimaru reverently on the top of the dresser, where Gamuza rested on a small stand. There was that hunger again as she let her eyes roam over him, padding back to where he stood.

“This room has a bath, through there,” she replied, indicating a door along the far wall that he’d taken for a closet. “It’s just a shower though.”

He didn’t care. Any activity that involved soap, hot water and Nel sounded like a small slice of heaven. Grabbing her hand, he tugged her towards what he hoped would be another hour of uninterrupted time with her, only to hear a knock on the door to the hallway. Then a voice that sounded suspiciously like the ill-tempered maid he encountered on the landing called out.

“Odelschwanck-san? Are you all right? That barbarian hasn’t done anything to you, has he? Are you…”

One of Nel’s eyebrows went up and she looked at Renji.

“I might have met her on the way up,” he offered in explanation. Considering his state of mind at the time, he left his mate to draw her own conclusions about the encounter. She gave him a wry look, which told him that she guessed correctly as to how that had turned out.

“I’m fine, Riruka-chan. Uhm… I may need some new bed linens and some clothes.”

The pause on the other side of the door went on just a little too long, before the maid spoke again.

“Lunch has been ready for a while now. Shall I bring a tray up, and some tea?”

“Oh yes! That would be wonderful! Can you bring enough for me and my…”

“Husband,” Renji suddenly said, making Nel turn around and look at him with huge eyes.

“What?”

“What was that, Odelschwanck-san?”

“I…”

Renji looked to the door and then raised his voice to address the woman on the other side of it.

“Riruka-san, I apologize for earlier. I’m sure my wife-to-be is starving after her exam and I’m afraid we’ll both need a change of clothing. Can you please bring us something to eat and some tea and change the linens on the bed while we clean up? I would deeply appreciate it, and Nel would as well.”

Nel continued to gape at him and Renji began to wonder if maybe he’d jumped the gun, but he held her gaze and her hands until he heard Riruka say, “Very well sir. I’ll be back with the linens and clothes in five and your meal in…”

“Give us half-an-hour, please!”

Nel had finally found her voice, though it sounded somewhat shocked and a bit high-pitched at the end.

“Certainly, Odelschwanck-san.”

The carpet runner in the hallway and the door muffled the maid’s footsteps as she made her retreat.

“Husband?”

Renji stepped away from the remains of his kosode and hakama, quickly removed his fundoshi and took several steps backwards towards the bathroom, her hand in his.

“If you’ll have me.”

“But we’re already mates, Renji!”

“True and if it’s safe for you to do so, I want you to Claim me again. Right now. Just let me get the water running first.”

“Then why…?”

Renji reached behind him, clawed around for the door handle and yanked the door open to find a decently appointed, if utilitarian-looking guest bath complete with a window done in glass brick to afford the user privacy. He could see various soaps, toiletries and thankfully, several scrub brushes on a wooden teak shelf, with a bench made from the same wood along the back wall. Someone had put a vase full of cut tulips and daffodils on the sink, and the towels hanging on the rod were clean, but he was interested in the wide showerhead that came down from the ceiling. Once Nel was over the threshold, he kicked the door closed with his foot and made sure the lock worked.

“I’ll tell you why.”

The redhead reached the controls and cranked the handle to the left, managing to turn on a miniature rainstorm in the process. Putting one hand under the spray, he waited until the water was hot and the room began to fill with steam, and then dialled it back a bit. With a grimace, he also saw a thin layer of grey wash away where the spray hit his skin. Renji swiped a bottle of what he hoped was shampoo from the shelf and popped the cap.

“Because you’ve been protecting me all this time with your Claim. When this is over, when we’ve gutted that bastard and all those who support him, when it’s safe for Ajuga-chan to do whatever it is the Spirit King has to do to fix things…”

He grabbed Nel’s hand and stepped under the warm downpour, bringing her with him over the rapidly heating tiles. Reaching up, he quickly scrubbed the green and grey smudges from his face and arms, and washed several days’ worth of nastiness from his tangled hair. Then he reached out and ran his fingers through his mate’s long, wavy tresses, entranced as her turquoise locks turned to a rich teal with a decent soaking. He also found his eyes riveted to the drops of water that clung to her full lower lip, as if begging him to lick them away.

“…I want to protect you, and our son, by giving you my name. I’m not sure how it will all shake out, but our cub,” he said, tracing his fingers over Nel’s belly, “will not lack for a father who’s willing to kill anything or anyone who looks at him in the wrong way. Just like your Claim has kept Aizen and the other Arrancar off my back, my name will make anyone who questions your right to be there, or with me, think twice about opening his or her mouth.”

Nel looked away and he took the opportunity to pluck a bar of soap from its spot next to the bottles and a square of terry cloth. Working up two handfuls of suds, he began to scrub some of the more stubborn gunk from his chest and forearms, until the water coming off of him was no longer dingy and the only black things on his body were the tattoos and a few purplish bruises.

“Is that the only reason?” Her tone was subdued and Renji wondered if she thought he was only asking this out of expediency. He snorted and let her feel all of the pent-up longing he’d felt since autumn.

“Hell no!” he responded and turned her around, so that he was pressed against her back and his arms circled her. He pushed her hair away from the nape of her neck and kissed the wet skin where her neck and her shoulder met. Doing so made her arch, and her bottom pushed against him in a way that made him forget, for a few seconds, what he was going to say.

“I told you. No more waiting, Nel. No more stolen hours behind a Kido barrier. No more hiding. Your Claim is on me, and I belong to you…”

Renji ran his tongue along the shell of her ear as he said this and hugged her closer, until the heat he could feel had nothing to do with the water and steam around them.

“… and if you take my name, you’ll belong to me in turn. You’re already in my inner world, Nel. There’s no part of me that you don’t own. The Claim exists to let the rest of the Arrancar know I’m yours. A wedding…”

Nel lifted both her arms, reaching up to slip her fingers into his red mane, working out a few of the worst tangles and letting her head fall back against his collarbone. His hands found her breasts and she breathed out a long ragged, pleading sigh that sounded suspiciously like his name.

“…will let the _gods_ know you’re _mine_. Marry me, Nel. Please.”

The Espada in his grasp squirmed around, her body slippery with suds, until she faced him. That lead to a great deal of back and forth with tongues and lips and an occasional nip, which in turn led to Renji sitting against a tiled wall, robbed of the ability to think of anything else but the soapy girl in his lap. One of her hands moved a bit lower and he ground his teeth together as she found what she wanted and worked him relentlessly with her fingers. Then, rising on her knees, she brought the head of his cock into contact with her warm, wet sex and ever so slowly sank down on his length. He clutched her hips, trying to control her descent, not knowing if he would hurt her if they went too fast, or if she expended too much energy in recasting her Claim. When she was flush with him, leaning back against his bent legs to accommodate her swollen midsection, her lashes fluttered and she sighed deeply.

It had been months… how had he survived without this, without her, for so long? How in Kami’s name had he let her go in the first place?

“Oh… yeessss…” she whispered as she tossed her head back and closed her eyes.

With the slick tiles, he wasn’t able to get much leverage, but she didn’t seem to need it. Placing her fingertips on his shoulders, she began to move in a leisurely, riding motion. He let her control the pace of their coupling, content to watch her and touch as much of her as he could. Her reiatsu snaked its way around him, taking its time as well and he almost wondered why their joining didn’t have the wild, chaotic urgency to it that it usually did, before he remembered that as of today, there would be no cruel crimson walls flashing and no limit to how long they could enjoy themselves.

The thought almost tipped him over the edge, and he gripped her bottom, making her pause as he collected himself before his body could shame him. That’s when he realized she’d been chanting something in his ear.

“Yes… yes… yes…” she whimpered and Renji sucked in his breath.

“Yes?”

“Yes! I’ll be Abarai Nel if you want,” he heard her sob.

Renji slid his hands to what remained of her waist. After a few deep gulps of steam-laden air, he lifted Nel and let her sink again. She shivered, rolling her hips repeatedly, her motions speeding up as the minutes passed, causing a tight coil of pleasure to form in his loins. He pulled her as close as her abdomen would allow and forced her mouth open with his greedy tongue, letting the first trickle of her reiatsu make its way down his throat, until he guzzled it by the mouthful. The delicious sensation grew sharper and he became dimly aware that her thighs, on either side of his hips, had started to tremble.

His right hand slipped along the crease of her thigh and his knuckles brushed the skin below her belly, before seeking out that one little spot with his fingers. Nel almost lurched off of his lap when he found it and gently stroked it each time she descended. Her legs began to shake in earnest and in turn, he sped up the strokes, drinking in her power as he suddenly pressed down on that little bit of flesh.

“Abarai Nel. I like… the sound… of that…” he growled into her open mouth, before he lost the battle against cumming too quickly. Fortunately, her control was just as fragile as his was. The stream of reiatsu became a torrent and then a flood as she wrenched a piece of him away when she climaxed. The silky flesh around his clenched rhythmically, the tremors beginning with the head of his shaft and traveling along his length until every muscle surrounding him seemed bent on milking him dry.

“Oh, shit! Nel!” he shouted back as he flooded her in turn. For a moment, Renji’s vision failed him and even the sound of the shower dwindled in his ears. He was helpless to do anything but release hot, sticky white surges of cum into her already perfect, caressing heat as she re-Claimed him. His tongue stroked hers and his roving hands rubbed her belly, where her body cradled and protected their son.

In turn, Renji vowed, he’d do everything he could to safeguard them, including sending Zabimaru through Aizen’s skull if that was what it took. Eventually, his breathing came back to normal. It was only then that he realized that some of the droplets on his shoulders were saltwater. Turning his head to the side, he brushed a water-darkened curl from her face and saw tears leaking from the corner of her right eye.

“Nel?” he whispered, suddenly aghast. “Did I hurt you? Kami, I did, didn’t I?”

The woman in his lap shook her head.

“Don’t go. Don’t leave again. Don’t… throw your life away by challenging Aizen…”

She sounded nothing like the calm collected woman who had prevented him from doing anything stupid and suicidal, and more like a frightened girl. Stunned, he faced her, and found her eyes were brimming, their platinum color gone gold in the light filtering in from the window. Renji brushed the tears away with his knuckles. He also traced the spiral ram’s horn of her mask, letting his fingers move across the scar on the left side.

“Nel, beautiful… I can’t make that promise. We’re going to have to try to take out that bastard, before he gets to Ajuga-chan or manages to get an Heir. If we don’t, there won’t be anywhere in the Seireitei, Hueco Mundo or the Living World where we can hide from him. I’ll have to go with them, because running scared is no way for a boy to grow up. Trust me.”

Renji carefully disentangled himself from her, slipping from her in a rush of wetness and rose on shaky legs. He got her to her feet, and offered her his arm, so that she had something to lean on to prevent slipping on the tiles. The shower spray had lost much of its heat and he made sure he rinsed them both thoroughly before he turned off the water. Taking a towel, slightly damp from all the steam, he wrapped it around Nel before she could take a chill. Too many things had happened today over which he’d had no control. His mate’s… no, his future _wife_ _’_ _s_ health, he decided, would _not_ be one of them. She allowed him to pat her hair dry and then looked up at him as he grabbed the next towel in the stack on the shelf. It was probably a good thing that the steam from the shower had fogged the mirror. He’d had little sleep, not enough food and had used his Bankai without reserve for at least part of that morning’s battle. A rub of his hand across his jaw told him he also needed a shave. Nel gave him a tired look and suddenly, the idea of a nap in that ridiculously large bed sounded much better than trying to address every problem he knew they would face in the near future.

He toweled his hair, knowing he’d have to keep the mess braided if their hosts didn’t have a tie and silenced his new fiancée with a kiss and all of the reassurance that he could send to her with the refreshed Claim. Then a thought occurred to him, and with it, a possible way of taking her mind off of the battles that would soon be on their doorstep. If he was going to be someone’s mate, he told himself, he’d better start acting like one.

“Nel, we never got to den up. I think we should do that now. You,” he said gently, watching as the steam began to dissipate, “and me. It’s not as if I’ll have anything to wear that will fit me until I can get my uniform washed and if I can sweet-talk the maid into feeding us occasionally, at least for the next day or so… what do you say?”

She regarded him with wide eyes, pondering the idea and when she nodded, he kissed her again, this time with a bite to her lower lip. Nel had explained the purpose of doing this the last time they’d met, as a way to maximize the chances of a cub. They might be going about doing things in the wrong order, but if it satisfied some need within her as an Arrancar, he’d happily spend the next day or two letting her wear _him_ , instead of that too-large yukata. Doing so just might begin to make up for all of the times he’d had to watch her disappear through a darkened doorway and the bed in the room outside was a far better one than the shabby, uncomfortable one they’d had to make do with in the basement of the Science and Research Division.

Renji cracked the door open, not wanting to give Riruka the maid either a free show or a heart attack. To his surprise, he found someone had already changed the bed and placed a stack of clean towels on the dresser next to their weapons. A large covered tray and a teapot and two cups sat on a small table next to the window. When he went to inspect it, he found several plates of mochi, two large bowls of miso and vegetables, what smelled like grilled chicken and an entire container of sour pickled radishes. There was quite a bit of food there, but she was eating for two and he hadn’t had a decent, sit-down meal that didn’t involve the feeding of children in a very long time. When he looked quizzically down at the fare, Nel, leaning in the doorway to the bath, gave him a tiny smile.

“I’ve been craving sour things. Yuzu-chan makes her own from what she grows in the garden. I could eat them all day!”

It took less than ten minutes to empty the tray and another five to drain the teapot of its contents. Nel ate as if someone had starved her for weeks and with a little guilt, Renji assumed his son was the culprit. When she’d polished off the pickles and her portion, he handed her the remainder of his mochi and told her to finish. With his own hunger appeased, he took a moment to examine the elegant, European-style room and its furnishings. In a sunny corner sat a pot full of green grass and wildflowers breaking through the soil. He grinned, recognizing it as the gift he’d given her during their third stolen hour, grown to twice its original size. Then his eyes fell on a low bookshelf, filled with all sorts of books. Getting up, he took in the names on the spines. He recognized few of them, with most written in foreign languages. Then he spied a long row of volumes in kanji he could read and bent down to snatch one. It turned out not to be a book, but a collection of manga. Back in the days when he’d been an occasional visitor to Ichigo Kurosaki’s house, he’d seen a few on the kid’s desk, along with his schoolbooks. Renji flipped open the cover and expected to find giant robots, samurai or schoolgirls who could turn into cats with wings, tutus and magic wands.

There were schoolgirls aplenty, but they certainly weren’t morphing into cats. The redhead knew his cheeks had flared as red as his hair as he flipped the pages and discovered new and previously unknown ways of employing a human tongue, as well as other body parts. Considering what they’d just been doing in the shower, he felt a bit proud that he could still blush at pornography. Nel coughed and he turned to her, snapping the book shut, only to discover her face was just as flushed as his was and that she was trying to hide behind her teacup.

“They aren’t really mine,” she tried to explain, fiddling with the edge of the towel wrapped around her body. “When Yoruichi came to me and asked if I would Claim you, I agreed, but it had been so long since my mother had talked to me about things and my father always used such flowery language when he spoke about Claiming. I wasn’t entirely sure if what I was going to do was right and I had no experience at all.” Nel looked almost shamefaced at the admission. “So I asked Hiyori and she said that she knew of something that would help. She left and came back a few hours later with all of those books and declared that if I read them, I’d know exactly what to do, and that I’d better hurry up. I believe they belonged to someone named Lisa, one of the Vizards who died during the War and that Hiyori dug them out from where her friend hid them, in their old safe house. I’m sorry, Renji, I know that they’re not… I mean, Papa would have them vile trash. I just… I didn’t want to accidentally hurt you.”

Renji listened, having a hard time believing that he owed all of the best experiences of his life to someone’s nearly forgotten smut stash. Nevertheless, when she started to sound distressed about him finding out, he drew her out of the chair and hugged her close.

“We’ve been together for over three whole hours now. We should add a fourth, don’t you think? C’mon.”

He swiftly picked up the empty dishes, teapot and cups, and once he was certain no one was in the hallway, placed them outside of the door and locked it. Then he gestured for his mate to hand him her towel and he hung it over the bathroom doorknob. He wasn’t going to remain awake for long and neither was Nel. Whoever had made the bed had done them the courtesy of turning it down and Renji drew her to it. She sank down into the mattress with a grateful sigh and he followed, laying with his back to the door and spooning around her protectively. His mate relaxed against him and he buried his nose in her damp hair, before moving his hand to rest on her stomach.

“Nel, don’t be ashamed. In fact,” he murmured suggestively into her ear, “since we’re going to be here for a while, I think we should give page forty-seven a try later. Maybe work our way through to the last chapter if you’re up to it.”

Shock and exhaustion laced her response in equal measure.

“Renji!”

He remained undaunted.

“White sheets instead of sand, Nel, but it’ll be the same. Everyone’s going to know we belong to one another by tomorrow evening. I’ll make sure of that.”

She mumbled her response, the words sleepy and her voice worn and he had no idea what she’d uttered, but it hardly mattered. Renji pulled the covers over them both and let himself drift off, hoping that he would still be in this bedroom when he woke up. One of his worst nightmares had come to life today and he didn’t think he could stand it if the last few hours turned out to be nothing but a vanished dream.


	60. Butterfly Collection

Tatsuki and Rangiku eyed the nearly empty refrigerator in annoyance. Aizen’s order for Tesra to accompany Nnoitra north hadn’t pleased the Espada, but after witnessing Szayel’s outburst at the meeting, he hadn’t contested Kami’s decision. No one with half a brain argued with Aizen. Tesra had stocked the pantry and the refrigerator the night before he and Nnoitra had left and both men had taken the opportunity to partake of their woman and saturate the two with their scent, to remind anyone and everyone who saw them that the two were taken. Recasting their Claims was out of the question, for the sake of the unborn children, much to Tatsuki‘s disappointment. She would have to make sure that Tesra refreshed it, preferably every other night, after their child was born. It had been too long, in her mind at least since he’d reduced her to a breathless puddle of goo beneath him.

The men had purchased enough food for two weeks, maybe two-and-a-half if they ate sparingly. Unfortunately, they hadn’t considered the voracious appetites of two women carrying Arrancar hybrids. Tatsuki had thought Orihime was utterly ravenous when she’d been pregnant with Diaemus. It turned out that her childhood friend had nothing on Rangiku. The blonde-haired woman was eating for three after all.

“I think we need to go shopping.”

Tatsuki sighed as they surveyed the pantry, with its nearly bare shelves. “Too bad there are no restaurants that deliver in the Seireitei. There was this awesome place near our school that had the _best_ yakisoba,” she said wistfully.

“Well, we have _permission_ ,” Rangiku said the word sarcastically, “to leave the house tomorrow to go for our checkups with Unohana-Taichou. We could grab some things on the way back.”

Being pregnant had made Rangiku exceedingly moody and Nnoitra’s absence allowed her to speak her mind without fear of receiving a spanking. A beating was out of the question, but he had reddened her behind when she’d slipped up and talked back to him in a fit of hormonally driven pique. Neither one of them would put it past him to paddle her again if he felt she was being deliberately disrespectful.

“True. Tesra _did_ leave me his card. I really don’t want to leave you alone either. Nnoitra might get upset about me leaving you unguarded, especially with those two prowling around the house. Although, I do find it ironic that, for all of his chauvinistic ways, he expects a pregnant woman to watch your back,” Tatsuki snorted irritably. Rangiku echoed it.

“I suspect he ordered a few of the Numeros to keep an eye on this place… like those morons lounging around out there, who apparently think they’re invisible. I think the number of ‘passersby’ in the last week has increased too. This street doesn’t normally get _this_ much foot traffic.” Rangiku pouted and scowled out the window at the two Numeros standing across the street, pretending to converse with one another. “Trouble is, we don’t actually know if he did or not. I wish he would just tell us things, instead of leaving us in the dark!”

Tatsuki made a noise that she meant as a sign of agreement and pulled the last package of pork from the freezer. The refrigerator boasted a handful of vegetables, a pot of white rice and two fish, which she decided that they had best deal with quickly before they went bad.

“Here, take this,” she told Rangiku and passed the pork back to the other woman before diving back in for the pot containing the remainder of the pre-cooked rice. They’d have pork-fried rice tonight, minus the egg as they’d run out of those yesterday, and fish soup. Then the larder would truly be bare. Tatsuki hoped that there was enough credit on Tesra’s card to fill both the fridge and the pantry for another week, as there was no telling when their men would return.

“At least I _hope_ they are just keeping an eye on us. If they were here to try and ‘steal’ us away, they’d have done it by now. Still, they are making me a little nervous. I don’t like being watched by people I don’t know.”

Tatsuki suddenly froze as she felt something odd. Over the years, Tatsuki had developed a sort of sixth sense when it came to Orihime. She could tell where her childhood friend was, able to sense the other woman’s reiatsu. She wasn’t certain exactly when she’d developed the ability to track her friend. It was simply there. That sixth sense had just snapped at her, the effect much like an elastic band stretched too tight and then released. One second Orihime was far to the north, almost too far for her to detect. The next second, her friend was just to the south of the house. The sensation of rapid movement disoriented her and Tatsuki swooned slightly.

“Morning sickness?” Rangiku asked concerned, reaching for Tatsuki’s elbow to steady her. The dark-haired human shook her head and frowned, bracing herself on the counter.

“No. Orihime just… _moved_ a huge distance, from far to the North back to… I think Aizen’s Palace, if my sense of direction isn’t off. How is that possible?”

She stared out the kitchen window, past the Numeros and the houses beyond, to look in the direction of the Palace. Yes, she realized, Orihime was definitely there, though she had no explanation for it. Luckily, Rangiku provided one.

“Aizen must have teleported them all back,” the blonde-haired woman noted, checking for other, familiar reiatsu signatures and made a face. “Yeah, they are back,” she sighed.

“Wow,” Tatsuki exclaimed, sending love through her Claim to her mate. “Aizen can teleport?”

Rangiku pressed her lips together and her brows knit. Then she shrugged.

“It’s a high level Kido spell. Not many can do it, and I definitely don’t know anyone that can do so from such a distance with so many people riding along. It’s also forbidden Kido.”

“Forbidden?”

Rangiku nodded sagely “Yes. The old rules forbid the use of any Kido spell that messed with time and space, for obvious reasons. I shouldn’t be surprised that Aizen knows it, or would be willing to use something like that.”

Tatsuki wondered, briefly, what those ‘obvious reasons’ were. The spell sounded like it could be quite handy, but then, she wasn’t a Shinigami. Her friend made a ‘huh’ sound and her frown deepened.

“That’s odd. Grimmjow and Szayel’s reiatsu signatures aren’t there. Renji, Diaemus, Hana, Nemu, Karin… I don’t feel any of them.”

Tatsuki concentrated and realized that her friend was correct and that the returning war party was short a few members. “I don’t sense them either.” A bit of fear crept into Tatsuki’s reply. “Do you think they may have remained up North?”

“It’s possible, especially if Aizen wants to establish a sentry post of some sort. I am sure Szayel would be able to get a communications tower up and the others may be remaining behind as lookouts. You know, to make sure the Swarm doesn’t come back like an annoying cockroach.”

 _Or an annoying mantis,_ Tatsuki silently filled in the unspoken comparison, then went back to the ‘why’ of the others’ absence.

“If he wanted Szayel to create a relay tower, why leave Nemu behind?”

Rangiku pulled a face, already unhappy that her ‘break’ from Nnoitra’s demands was over.

“I am sure Abisara-kun, or any other member of the freak show that is the Science Division, could sync it up from here. Aizen probably made them stay behind as punishment for that outburst during the meeting before they left.”

“That I could see,” Tatsuki chuckled. “Can you imagine, poor Szayel with no running water or bathing amenities? Nothing more than a tent to sleep in and dirty clothes to wear. I bet it was one hell of a battle to get Renji to stay behind though. He loves those twins as if they were his own.”

Rangiku nodded, conceding her fellow former Fukutaichou’s seemingly single-minded attachment to his charges. Then her face fell and her eyes filled with resignation.

“It looks like ‘Nnoitra-sama’ is on his way home. Should we bother making a meal or should we see if we can weasel our way into take out?”

“Let’s wait, just in case he wants to take us to a restaurant,” Tatsuki suggested. “They should be here shortly. Oh, and you better put the chain back on.”

Tatsuki pointed towards the end of the golden chain hanging on the wall by the doorway.

Rangiku glared hatefully at the thing, but reluctantly made her way over so she could reattach it to her anklet. Her pregnancy hadn’t spared her from the indignation of wearing the thing. The last several days without it dragging behind her as a reminder of her ‘pet’ status had been a relief. Nnoitra hadn’t actually given her permission to take it off, but the only person who could tattle on Rangiku was Tatsuki and Tatsuki certainly wasn’t going to say anything. The floor wouldn’t be visible to anyone looking in through the windows, so even if their two stalkers _were_ watching over them on Nnoitra’s orders, there was no way they could report the chain’s absence.

Both women made their way to the door as they felt the men get close. The spring sun was warm as they stood on the small porch, looking down the street expectantly. Then Nnoitra and Tesra were through the gate, still battle-stained. The nasty goop on their clothing was still fresh in spots and Tesra looked exhausted. Tatsuki raced down the two steps and flung herself into her mate’s arms. Tesra swung her around, despite his obvious fatigue and pulled her into a fierce hug. She returned it and upped it with an aggressive kiss while her hands roamed his body, reassuring herself that he was here and that he was injury free. He happily returned it and his hands moved down to the bump in her stomach, roaming over it.

Rangiku had a less exuberant reunion with her Master. She simply bowed her head and murmured a greeting for his return. Nnoitra pulled her into his arms, mindful of her growing belly and squeezed her ass. The move resulted in a surprised squeak from her that brought a satisfied grin to his face.

“Did you obey all of my commands while we were gone?” he questioned with a wide smirk.

Tatsuki froze, as did Rangiku. They should have thought about such a scenario, and she cursed herself for not thinking about it. They should have thought of something as basic as Nnoitra asking them a question that Rangiku would have to answer truthfully. Fortunately, her time as a captive had made her quick on her feet when it came to answering such probing questions.

“I removed the chain Nnoitra-sama. There were several Arrancar we didn’t recognize loitering about the house in the last few days, and we did not want to risk the extra time it would take to remove it if we had to defend ourselves,” Rangiku answered hesitantly, then added. “It would not be the first time lesser trash dared to try and touch what isn’t theirs.”

Nnoitra’s expression went from ‘humored’ to’ peeved’ in seconds, and Tatsuki braced herself for violence. Then her mate coughed discreetly into his fist, and glanced up at his Espada with a somewhat chagrined expression.

“We didn’t tell them that we had ordered a few of the Numeros to stand guard on the house while we were gone, did we?” he inquired. Tatsuki could have kissed him at that point, but held off. There would be plenty of time for that later. When she felt just the slightest tug on her Claim, she knew it for what it was: a request to play along.

“No, you failed to mention that,” Tatsuki retorted with enough exaggeration to make it sound as if the men’s oversight was the root cause of Rangiku’s disobedience. There was truth to both Rangiku’s statement, and Tatsuki’s as well. Those first two days alone, knowing there were strange Numeros outside had been a little nerve-racking to the two pregnant women before they’d deduced the hovering Arrancars’ real purpose.

“Che!” Nnoitra snorted and rolled his eyes in disgust. “Useless guards can’t even keep their presence hidden.” With that, the tense atmosphere on the porch completely drained away. “Kami-sama wants us to attend some celebration tonight at the Palace. Come on.” He grasped Rangiku by the wrist and pulled her towards the front door, giving her a leer. “He said to clean up and take pleasure in our pets. Gotta obey orders after all!”

“So you took care of the Swarm base?” Rangiku asked.

“Nothing more than ice dust now,” Nnoitra boasted. “It was invigorating to be able to let loose without needing to worry about hurting the small fry. Their numbers made it interesting at least!”

“Are we going to this dinner too?” Tatsuki asked Tesra as Nnoitra paused in the doorway, impatient to get to the ‘taking pleasure’ part.

“Yes,” Tesra replied and Tatsuki groaned in relief.

“Excellent, we are starving! This little one is a ravenous monster! We haven’t stopped eating since you two left! We were actually starting to run out of food,” she chuckled, then asked curiously, “So, what did Szayel-sama and Grimmjow-sama do to get stuck guarding the North?”

At that, Nnoitra let out a loud laugh and then kept on laughing. It had to have been something good if Nnoitra found it this funny.

“Aizen declared them traitors, and their property forfeit. Something about trying to take his Throne away. I always knew Szayel was a couple of cards short of a full deck, but he fucked up big this time,” Nnoitra told them. “He’ll be lucky if Aizen just decides to kill him, giving how much we all learned Kami likes to fuck him.”

Tatsuki felt horror run through her. Hell, she didn’t even hear the rest of Nnoitra’s sentence after ‘property forfeit,’ although a small part of her registered the fact that Szayel had apparently spent time under Aizen. Her real concern was not for the doomed scientist or the aggressive Espada, but for the twins.

“What about Vindula-chan and Abisara-kun?” Rangiku asked, equally horrified, before Tatsuki could recover enough to do so herself.

“What about them?” Nnoitra shot back, clearly not the least bit concerned.

For a second, Tatsuki was furious with his response, but had to remind herself that this was Nnoitra. Why would he care about the Seventh’s children? They were not _his_ cubs and he had never shown much interest in any of the hybrid children. He tolerated them when they were around, but he didn’t actively seek them out or talk to them first. He hardly showed much interest in his own impending twins, other than bragging to the other Arrancar about siring them. Tatsuki hoped he had the patience to deal with late night crying without getting pissed about the resulting sleep loss and taking his frustrations out on Rangiku, or worse, his own offspring.

Others had already tried to Claim little Vindula-chan. Harribel, Toshiro and Renji had dealt with that ill-fated duo, but now the little girl had no protectors to fend off any like-minded Numeros. Renji had to be ripping his red hair out in clumps. She wouldn’t be surprised to see him bald the next time they meet, assuming they ever meet again. The order to run and leave the twins behind must have been Claim-enforced, she realized. That told her that something fishier than the two aging mackerel in the refrigerator had happened, because Tatsuki couldn’t see Szayel or Nemu willingly abandoning their children.

“Quit with the panic. Starrk has ‘em,” Nnoitra snarked when it was clear neither woman had recovered from their shock. If his irritation was any indication of Rangiku’s emotional state, Rangiku had to be hammering him with waves of fear and dread. She felt Tesra squeeze her shoulder, and knew that he felt her turmoil as well.

Tatsuki suddenly felt foolish. Nnoitra was right, which was a frightening thought all on its own. No one would mess with Starrk and Lilynette, and the First Espada had proclaimed that his pets would watch over the two, which put the children under his protection. Relief flooded her, followed by another round of concern for the others. She would have to interrogate Tesra later about what, exactly, had happened up north, because Nnoitra dropped the conversation. There was only one thing the Espada was interested in right now and he herded Rangiku through the doorway towards the stairs, presumably for a shower and for some ‘welcome home’ sex.

Knowing there was little she could do about that for Rangiku, Tatsuki turned towards her own mate as the door abruptly shut. A beleaguered, filthy Tesra reached out and leaned against her, once he no longer had to appear ‘with it’ for his superior.

“Come on, you need a shower as well. You smell like five-day-old sweat and you are covered in what had better be bug guts, considering you are getting them all over me, and nothing else.” She leaned in and gave him another kiss, which he tiredly returned.

“Bug guts,” he assured her when the kiss broke. “With your permission Nnoitra-sama?” he called out to the now closed door. They hadn’t combined their dens yet, so even though Nnoitra had ‘hinted’ it would be best for Tesra and his mate to stick around, they still had a claim on the old place.

“Go clean up,” Nnoitra’s muffled voice called out. “We will meet you at the Palace later.”

Tesra needed no further prompting. He scooped Tatsuki up, making her gasp, before he used his Sonido to get them back to their house, despite how weary he seemed. It was a bit of a relief to be home after a week away, and the shower was just as she remembered it, sex, love and all.

With Aizen’s announcement, Ulquiorra had braced himself for a cascade of grief and despair to come rushing towards him from Orihime. He even tried to fortify his psyche to weather a storm of negative emotions. He’d had plenty of practice doing just that over the last two-and-a-half weeks. They had just gotten their son back, and now they had lost him again.

Such preparation on his part proved unnecessary, much to his surprise. In fact, the only thing he received from Orihime was an overwhelming amount of pride with just a touch of concern. It was like expecting a blow from a powerful Cero that one could not avoid and instead, encountering a pleasantly soft ‘thump’ from a pillow. As such, her reaction left him confused and at a complete loss.

He thought he’d at least have a hysterical woman on his hands. In reality, she hummed as they entered their house, checking on the windows and doors to see that everything was as they’d left it nearly a week ago, before she started up the stairs. His Claim told Ulquiorra that the foremost thing on her mind involved cleaning off the accumulated grime that covered them both after five days travel, one day of waiting and a half-day of intense battle. He couldn’t argue with the logic of her actions; he disliked smelling ‘ripe’ and a hot bath was in order. What he lacked was a ‘why’ behind the absence of fear for Diaemus. He was certainly heading in the direction of ‘perturbed’ about what had reportedly happened to their boy.

“Orihime?”

“Yes?” she replied serenely as she turning the taps on to get the shower started.

“You are not concerned for our son?” he asked.

“Of course not!” she exclaimed. “He is with Grimmjow-san and Szayel-san and he had the heart to stand beside his friends, even though he could get into trouble. I am so proud of him!”

Her answer took him aback.

“Aizen said he _pursued_ them, not that he joined them,” Ulquiorra reminded her.

She gave him a ‘you know better than that’ look and tested the water with her hand, making sure it wasn’t too cold or too hot. She’d mentioned over the winter that, now that they’d have to re-landscape the back yard of the property thanks to the kids’ poorly aimed Cero, putting in a proper soaking bath might not be a bad investment. Ulquiorra wasn’t keen on wholesale immersion, but the idea of watching his mate slipping naked into steaming water appealed to him. Then he wrenched his focus back to the matter at hand and to what Orihime was saying.

“…of course he did. He obviously doesn’t know Diaemus-kun at all. That and he probably didn’t want to upset you. He just lost two of his Espada. Now there are only six of you out of the original ten. I don’t think he wants to lose any more enforcers.”

He had to admit she was correct, and that he hadn’t thought about it in those terms. While ‘enforcer’ wasn’t exactly the term that he would pick, it was accurate, as was her assessment of their son. Diaemus _did_ take after his mother in a few significant ways, mainly in his loyalty, to his own detriment at times, to his friends. If he had gone with them, rather than after them, Ulquiorra also had to conclude that his son was as safe as he could be giving the circumstances. If Diaemus _had_ opposed Grimmjow and Szayel, Ulquiorra knew that the Sixth would never raise a hand to the boy, or at least, wouldn’t kill him. It was more likely that Grimmjow would have left Diaemus unconscious while in the Royal Realm if that was the case and even that was a stretch. He didn’t see Ajuga, who was supposedly conspiring with her father and Szayel, allowing her father to harm one of her friends.

None of what he’d heard coming from Aizen’s mouth today added up, given what he knew of those involved. Therefore, either the supposed conspirators had done something completely out of character, which Ulquiorra found absurd considering Grimmjow’s mindset on the trip north, or…

…Kami had lied to them all.

“If I’m worried about anyone, it’s poor Ise-san. We didn’t hear what happened to Hana-chan!” Orihime’s tone dipped for a short minute into sadness, before bouncing back. “But I am sure she is fine. You know those three, always getting into trouble and nigh inseparable. Now… am I going to take this shower alone?” she asked innocently, standing before him wearing nothing more than her hair.

He’d apparently zoned out while pondering the reasoning behind the purported betrayal, because he hadn’t seen her remove her clothing. Yet there it was, in a pile on the floor, waiting for his garb to join it.

 _Orihime now,_ he told himself, faced with two choices. _The rest can wait._

Ulquiorra could hardly say no to an offer like that, and she was right. Diaemus _was_ safe for the time being, wherever that might be, and there was no use fretting about things over which he had no control. Orihime favoured him with a sultry smile and stepped into the shower, steam and hot water wreathing her body. He quickly removed his own soiled uniform and joined her. She tilted her head to the side as he pulled her flush against him, letting her feel what she did to him as his semi-hard length settled between her ass cheeks. His teeth nibbled her neck over the scar that had formed from years of frequent re-Claimings, making her shiver in delight. Those shivers excited him even further as their bodies rubbed together tantalizingly. His hands ran up her sides before moving around her to grasp a breast each. He squeezed each gently and she moaned as he rolled her nipples between his thumbs and fingers.

“Ulquiorra…”

He made an inquisitive noise against the skin in his mouth while he ran his tongue over it.

“I love you,” she breathed.

“Orihime.”

He pulled away from her, amused as she pouted at him over her shoulder, but she didn’t remain upset for long when he came back to her with a soap-covered cloth. Aizen had ordered them to clean up and return later for a feast and he saw no reason not to combine their ablutions with some much needed, private lovemaking. Having a tent of their own had been all fine and good, but hot water and four, somewhat soundproof walls were even better.

He started with her neck, massaging her cold, sore muscles as he worked his way down her body. Unlike him, she didn’t have his tough Heirro and the frigid temperatures on the trip had been very unpleasant for her. His mate was not used to ‘roughing it,’ but she hadn’t complained either. In addition, she had fought well today. He saw her use Tsubaki to slice cleanly through the joint between the heads and the thoraxes of at least a dozen beetles, killing them. Normally only the Arrancar and Taichou-classed Shinigami could claim such a feat, thanks to the creatures’ incredibly thick armour, but her weapon was small and agile enough to slide between the insects’ protective plates. He’d chosen well when he’d Claimed her, even if he could have gone about it in a different manner.

Orihime gasped as his left hand started to work its way between the folds of her sex, skillfully teasing her with his fingers. In response, she rubbed her soapy rear against him, stimulating his shaft in the rift between her bottom cheeks. That part of his anatomy didn’t need much encouragement. Just having her naked flesh pressed against his was enough. The addition of the high brought about by the battle that morning made his libido burn all the hotter and soon heat was all he knew: her wet, warm skin, the hot water from their shower and the scorching, tight slickness around his fingers as he plunged them within her.

When her channel clamped down on Ulquiorra’s hand, he decided that he needed to be inside of her. Nudging her legs apart a little further and getting her to brace her hands against the shower wall, he used his other hand to guide himself to her entrance while the fingers preparing her parted her folds.

Their voices mingled as he slowly sheathed himself within her moist, scalding core. When the base of his cock was flush with her folds and her hands became half-clenched fists against the tile on the wall, Ulquiorra leaned forward and began gently circling the swollen bud just above where their bodies came together. Sliding into her soft, constricting depths, from the first time he’d ever had her to this moment, left him reeling with a flurry of emotions. He hadn’t had names for them back then but he knew what they were now: love, desire, joy, gratitude… he sighed into her ear as her overwhelming love for him surged through the Claim towards him, warming and filling his once empty centre. Taking her as his own had been the best thing he had ever done and the thought of losing his connection to such a wellspring of passion terrified him.

 _To think there was a time when I thought such emotions were a sign of weakness. How pathetic is it that_ Grimmjow _was the one to point me towards a truer path? Emotions can make one weak, but…_

Orihime abruptly cut off his musings as her lovely, gripping muscles tightened once, then twice. His attention snapped back to the woman before him, who looked over her shoulder at him with lusty, if accusing eyes. Then the minx deliberately clenched him a third time. She’d caught him drifting, and he felt a moment of embarrassment before brushing it aside. He leaned forward and the two shared a deep kiss before both hands grabbed her hips. Soon he gave up on doing anything but thrusting into her wildly. He also abandoned trying to keep the maelstrom of emotions whirling through his brain in check. Instead, he let them run rampant, heightening the experience. Ulquiorra wasn’t certain which feelings were hers, shared with him via their connection and which were his, but found he simply didn’t care to try to tell the difference.

Orihime began to pant heavily beneath him and shoved her lower body back to meet him, all while bearing down on him each time he snapped his hips. Finally, unable to postpone his orgasm any longer, he buried himself as deep as he could and reached around to let his fingers press hard against the center of her pleasure, feeling it throb under his sword-calloused fingertips. Ulquiorra barely recognized his own voice as he shouted and came hard. Orihime let out a shrill cry as his twitching fingers and the thick pulsing length inside of her drove her over the edge after him. His mate’s sex quivered around him for what felt like hours as his mind emptied of everything save for dual sensations of their combined climaxes, one feeding off the other.

Afterwards, she clung to the wall, her legs trembling and her breath ragged. He rested his forehead between her shoulder blades, savouring the aftermath and the odd squeeze her fluttering insides gave him, though as he calmed and his erection ebbed, it became harder to feel her. He felt as if he’d just run another five days to the north, non-stop, only with a much better ending than a bedroll under a tarp.

“I love you,” she purred at him as he pressed closer, both hands moving up to cover hers where they splayed against the tiles.

“I love you as well,” he told her.

She gasped in surprise and he didn’t need to see her face to know she was pleased with what he’d said. She knew he loved her, but he still felt a moment of vulnerability as he said the words. It was worth it though, as she responded to his declaration with the very thing he had once foolishly thought of as a weakness. Never again would he be able to go back to such a nihilistic life, to feel nothing for anyone.

He slowly pulled out of her as that that thought sent his mind down a darker alley, and he recalled the conversation he’d had with Diaemus the night before the Swarm had taken his son. Ulquiorra had been unable to answer the boy’s question then, but he certainly could now. Perhaps it was fitting that a human woman, a boy and that irritating panther had been able to teach him the correct solution to such a query.

If Aizen where to raise a hand to either Orihime or Diaemus, he would fight. He would draw Murciélago against the man he had once held in the highest esteem and worshiped like the god he aspired to become. The Fourth would cut him down in a heartbeat should such an event happen.

“I need to speak to Starrk,” he murmured, mouthing this against the back of her neck as he stepped away from her.

Orihime said nothing, nor did she ask why he wanted to speak to the First. She just gave him one of her smiles as she turned around and kissed him soundly, and then helped him scrub the rest of the dirt from their journey away and rinsed her long, coppery hair until it gleamed. It did not escape his notice that she chose to wrap herself in the many silk layers of her Claiming Kimono, occasionally glancing at him from beneath her lashes with those silvery eyes of hers, while he dug out his spare uniform. Her gaze promised that the joining they’d just had would not be the last one this evening if she had anything to say about it.

By the time they were presentable it was time to go to Aizen’s feast, where he would have the opportunity to engage Starrk in a meaningful conversation. The First, in his experience, saw much and said little, both qualities he hoped he could use to help him interpret Aizen’s after-battle announcement.

It was an interpretation that he wasn’t certain that he wanted to hear. However, if what Starrk had to say meant peril for his son, he couldn’t afford to discount it.

Vindula skipped down the street towards the 2nd Division, her wings fluttering behind her as she did so. With some effort, she managed to get airborne and glided forward a few feet before she touched down, before she went back to skipping. The sunshine was warm on her cheeks, the air smelled of plum blossoms and she could hear songbirds calling to one another from the tops of trees that were already leafing out. Ukitake-san had taught her a song last night, when they had been drawing pictures at the kitchen table. He said it was something his mother had sung to him when he was her age, and the tune was so pretty that even Abisara had stopped tinkering with the project her Papa had given him to keep him busy while everyone was gone, in order to listen. She sang it now, trying to commit it to memory. With Ajuga missing, Vindula had taken it upon herself to make sure Ukitake-san got his tea and she thought that she could sing it to him as a surprise when she got to his office. Ajuga had let her help with Ukitake’s noontime medicine before, so she knew the correct ratio of tea to water as well as how long to let it steep. All she had to do was make sure he drank the stuff, instead of forgetting under the crush of paperwork on his desk. Of course, there was also the bag of candy she knew he kept hidden in the lower drawer of his desk…

Soi Fon accompanied her as a silent protector. Vindula would have felt better if ‘Ji-ji was with her, since the woman’s pregnancy kept her from walking as fast as Vindula could skip and it was also the reason that she’d had to slow down and not fly the entire way. Soi Fon had to be getting close to having her baby. The birth might be as close as three weeks away, from what her Papa had told ‘Ji-ji. Abisara would probably remember the exact day if she bothered to ask her brother.

The only clouds in her personal blue sky were the absences of her parents and ‘Ji-ji, and an odd tingling in her fingertips that had started two days ago. It didn’t hurt, exactly, and it came and went at random. She’d been weeding out one of the flowerbeds in the Estate’s main garden on that day when she’d first noticed the sensation. Her Hierro kept her from having to wear gardening gloves, like Nanao. Vindula had plunged her hands into the dirt, as she always had when the prickling began. At first, she thought she’d dragged her fingers across something sharp enough to cut through her skin. However, when she’d pulled her hand back, with an ‘Ow!’ and stared at it, she was shocked to discover that there was nothing there. The sharp feeling didn’t last long, but it had been real. She thought about telling her brother, but he’d been so distracted of late that she didn’t want to bother him. The initial, itchy pain had subsided anyway, only flickering briefly to life every so often, so it was most likely something that would pass on its own. There was no reason to trouble anyone about something so minor, especially when everyone was working so hard.

Soi Fon suddenly placed one of her hands on Vindula’s shoulder, bringing her back down to the pavement. The girl came to a stop, looking quizzically up at her temporary guardian. The pregnant woman’s eyes narrowed hatefully as she looked straight ahead. Following the woman’s gaze, Vindula saw someone she hadn’t expected to see. He walked calmly up to the two of them, a charming smile on his face and his hands clasped behind his back, as if he’d decided on going for a stroll in the sunshine too.

If he was here, she realized, that meant that everyone was back, that her parents and ‘Ji-ji were back and that she and Abisara would probably be going home tonight. Her eyes lit up at the thought as he strolled up.

“Kami-sama!” She greeted him cheerfully and curtsied in the way that all of the princesses she’d ever read about did when they met powerful people, or kings and queens. She even made sure to hold her dress out to either side, just like in the pictures.

“Vindula-chan,” Aizen replied, and smiled down at her, before his gaze flickered upwards towards the woman next to her.

Soi Fon’s hand tightened briefly, and Vindula frowned. Her entire posture said she was afraid, and the little girl could feel the woman’s pulse speed up through the palm she still had on Vindula’s shoulder. She had no idea why Soi Fon ought to be afraid. Kami was smiling after all.

“Soi Fon, you’re quite round these days,” Aizen began and then asked, “Your child is due soon, I presume?”

Soi Fon gave a sharp nod of her head, before pausing and with a look of thinly disguised look of disgust, pulled her chalkboard out and hesitantly began to write. Her fingers trembled slightly as she did so, and she stopped several times. Vindula couldn’t see what her guardian was writing, nor did she manage to get a peek of it as Soi Fon, with a great amount of obvious reluctance, passed the writing surface over to Aizen.

Aizen accepted the slate and read it. One of his eyebrows went up as she saw his eyes go back and forth across its width. Now Vindula _really_ wanted to know what it said. She knew her hiragana and katakana, and she could recognize plenty of kanji, but she hadn’t learned them all yet. It was another thing Ajuga-chan had shown her on occasion and something her mother and ‘Ji-ji spent time teaching her, just like her numbers.

“I believe something can be worked out,” Aizen spoke directly to Soi Fon, a faint smile on his lips. “Why don’t the two of you meet me for tea at my Palace and we will talk about it?” Aizen suggested warmly.

Soi Fon hesitated and then looked down and rested a hand on her stomach before indicating she agreed with a nod of her head.

“Very good. I have one more stop before I join you. Why don’t you both go there and inform the guard at the gate that I will receive you in my private garden.”

“But I have to give Ukitake-san his tea!” Vindula frowned, looking at the supplies in her hands. He seemed to consider her dilemma, because he held his hand out, indicating she should give him the basket.

“The 2nd Division is on my way to my last errand. I will deliver it to its Taichou personally,” Aizen offered and smiled down at her. “It will be no trouble at all.”

“Okay,” she agreed, handing the supplies over. She wanted to make Ajuga-chan proud of her, but Aizen was Kami, and the thought of getting to see the Royal Gardens again was just too tempting. “Thank you, Kami-sama!” She curtsied again, doing her best to do it elegantly. The most beautiful person she’d ever seen had taught her the proper way to say goodbye and she didn’t want to disappoint her Silk Prince by doing a clumsy job of it.

“I will see you two there shortly,” Aizen told them and disappeared, taking the basket with him. She’d wanted to ask him if she could see her parents, and what had happened that he was back early, but he was already gone. Then she told herself that ‘Ji-ji had always come to pick them up before and he would probably come and get them from the Estate later. If the battle had gone well, her Papa would likely have a bunch of new specimens and he’d be busy with those for a while, with Mama helping him. She could wait and be patient to see them.

She and Soi Fon looked at one another and then changed course for the Palace. Her somber guardian tucked the chalkboard back into her robes. Vindula wanted to ask what Soi Fon had written, but the woman didn’t seem like she really wanted to discuss it. Deciding it might be better not to bother her companion, Vindula’s chose to think about the Royal Gardens instead, and the treat of getting to have a tea party. The trees and shrubs had to be blooming by now, just like the many gardens at the Ukitake Estate, and she couldn’t wait to see what effect the early spring had had on Kami’s personal garden.

It, she decided, had to be gorgeous!

Abisara sat on the floor leaning against the wall behind him as he watched Mushi eat her daily dung. He kept one eye on the insect while he went over the schematics for his latest invention with the other, using the pen that came with the small, thin toolkit his father had presented to him for his birthday last fall. With his parents gone, he had taken it upon himself to care for their live specimens. He had been nervous the first time he had entered Mushi’s habitat. After all, the Swarm clearly hated Hollows and they didn’t seem thrilled with Shinigami either. He had introduced himself to the Scarab and carefully explained that he would be the one caring for her while Karin-san and his father were away for a mission. To his surprise and relief, Mushi readily accepted the change in caregivers. She’d given him no trouble at all. In fact, he found himself spending more and more time in the Scarab’s terrarium, despite the pungent air during feeding time. He felt safer in his family’s building and no one would think to look for him here. Only a few of his father’s staff, aside from his parents and Karin, even had the access codes to get into this place.

Mushi seemed agitated today, which he found odd. It was probably time to head back to Ukitake-san’s estate and help Vindula-chan prepare dinner. His sister wasn’t necessarily a bad cook, but she was easily distracted and when that happened, things caught fire or ended up over-seasoned. At least the Estate gardens looked less like overgrown weed piles as his twin got to work on them, to keep from getting bored. She truly was a butterfly, he thought. Now if only she’d stop going on and on about princes and etiquette and tea parties. Abisara usually snuck off when she started talking, leaving her to bug Ukitake-san. The older Shinigami was far more patient than he was about those kinds of silly things. He usually made sure he stuck around long enough, though, to snag a lollipop or two from the dish Ukitake-san kept in his library…

Standing up, Abisara placed his notes in his pocket and slid the toolkit into the pocked of his hakama before stretching, wincing as his back popped. Mushi looked his way and he offered the scarab a smile and a bow, although the gestures might be lost on the insect since bugs generally didn’t have lips.

“Well, I have to go,” he announced. “I’ll swing by again tomorrow.”

Mushi scuttled her way over to him. He placed a hand on her forehead, like he’d seen Karin-sama do every time she came to see the Scarab and she made several clicks and buzzes that sounded like a ‘farewell for now.’ He gave her head a brief rub and turned to go when Mushi suddenly wrapped her front leg around him and moved him out of the way, aggressive noises flowing out of her. Before Abisara even finished moving, let alone think about giving a reprimand, he felt a familiar and terrifying reiatsu flood the room. He couldn’t hold back his fear, and ducked behind Mushi, silently praying the scarab’s body would hide him from the monster in the room with them.

“Ah, Karin and Szayel’s pet. You seem quite upset. Did you feel your companions’ deaths as I sliced them down with my Zanpakuto?” Aizen asked the insect in an overly sweet voice.

Mushi let out a loud screech, but did not move. Instead, her wings bristled in a display that said ‘stay back’ and filled the room with a steady, angry buzz. Aizen gave her a sardonic grin.

“A pity you lack speech. I would like confirmation of the Swarm’s current state of disarray, as we’ve destroyed your base and scattered those left. Those few who escaped will soon die of oxygen depletion and from the cold, like the vermin you are. Since you lack a proper throat, beast, you are beneath my notice.”

Aizen’s grin grew even wider as he took his eyes from Mushi’s head and stared at her body.

“Now then, why don’t you come out, Abisara-kun? I know you are back there.”

Abisara slowly peeked out from behind Mushi, knowing there was no point in hiding when Aizen had clearly found him. He hesitated, not really wanting to leave his dubious cover.

“Ah, there you are boy. Come forward now.”

Gulping nervously, and trembling in apprehension, he obeyed, at least enough that he was standing by one of Mushi’s front legs and in clear sight of the man that terrified him beyond reason.

“Where is my father?” Abisara asked. There was no way Szayel would have let Aizen into the labs on his own.

The look that crossed Aizen’s face at the mention of Szayel nearly caused him to run back behind Mushi. Something terrible had happened, and he was about to learn what it was. Aizen laughed as he informed the boy of his family’s fate, as if the idea of Szayel attempting to take the Throne was some grand joke. Hearing about the betrayal, and his parents’ desertion surprised Abisara, though Mushi tittered at Aizen’s story for some reason. That gave him pause. Did Mushi know something he didn’t, and if so, how? If she did, then what Aizen had just told him was suspect, if not a complete fallacy.

The idea of Aizen lying to him was much easier for him to believe than the idea that his parents would do something so… final without taking him and Vindula with them or that ‘Ji-ji wouldn’t try to get to them first.

In addition, his father was far too smart to have failed any coup that he attempted and the Seventh Espada had plenty of good reasons to lead one. Nonetheless, he knew it didn’t matter if his father had actually committed a crime against Aizen or not. A sentence like that could only have one outcome.

Gulping nervously, he once more backed behind Mushi’s leg. If Aizen had declared his father a traitor, his property no longer had any rights or protection, and that included both himself and his sister.

Abisara tried not to show Aizen how frightened he really was at the implication. He had to find Vindula-chan and get them both out of there, though he wasn’t certain _where_ they might go. He had no idea where his father had gone and going to Hueco Mundo might be worse than trying to hide in the Seireitei or the Living World.

“You will come with me now, Abisara-kun. Your father and your mongrel of a guardian will not suffer your loss for long. When they come for you, _I_ will be waiting.”

At least that sharply worded declaration rang true. His father wouldn’t want his children anywhere near Aizen if he could help it and neither would ‘Ji-ji. He certainly didn’t want Kami to use him as bait in a snare, not if he could help it. His father had shown him how to use the Garganta gate in the basement. He just had to figure out where his sister was and get the both of them down there.

Unfortunately for him, the first obstacle, getting past Aizen, was possibly the most insurmountable thing in existence. Kami’s expression had taken a turn for the stern and he didn’t know what would happen to him if he got within arm’s reach, let alone if he tried to bypass him and make a run for it.

“My patience grows thin Abisara-kun.”

His fear of the man rooted him to the spot, cowering behind Mushi’s leg. When Aizen’s eyes narrowed and he took a step forward, the creature shielding him reacted.

“No! Mushi, wait!” Abisara cried out as the Scarab threw herself at Aizen, screeching and clicking in fury.

There was a loud noise, one Abisara had never heard before. It would haunt his dreams for some time to come, however. Blinding white light flashed throughout the cell. Abisara cringed back and covered his eyes, but he still saw it hit the insect. When the brightness vanished, the Scarab fell over… in two different directions. With no effort on his part, Aizen had sliced Mushi cleanly in half, ending her life in less than a second.

Abisara stared at the insect’s remains in horror as green ichor and guts pooled on the floor and slowly soaked his boots. Aizen’s strike had been precise, fast and unexpected. He was too stunned to make a sound as he took in the death of a creature that, just minutes before, he’d been conversing with, feeding and patting on the head. The only thing that Mushi had been guilty of was trying to protect him.

“Worthless pest,” Aizen said derisively before turning his piercing gaze towards Abisara. “I will not tell you again. Your sister awaits you at the Palace and I am a busy man. I only need one of you alive to lure your father back to the Seireitei and your sister isn’t the one I’d prefer to keep, as I find her inane prattle tiresome.”

Terror turned to anger at the threat against Vindula, but it didn’t last long before his fear returned, stronger than before. Any doubts that Aizen wouldn’t follow through on killing his twin died along with the Scarab.

Shivering, he forced himself to walk over towards Aizen, walking through the valley created by Mushi‘s bisected corpse and through a river of the poor scarabs insides. He couldn’t help trembling as one of Aizen’s hands rested on his shoulder when he finally reached the man. His parents and Renji had done their best to hide Aizen’s monstrous actions from him and his sister, but he was not a fool. Abisara spent a great deal of time in the Division’s labs; he certainly knew blood for what it was when he smelled it and he’d only recently understood what the second scent that clung to his sire’s injured frame really was. Kami had hurt his father many times before, and the last time his father hadn’t come home, it had been because Abisara had failed to create what Kami wanted. Now that his father wasn’t here for Kami to hurt…

Aizen’s hand trailed up from his shoulder and Abisara found his chin between the ex-Shinigami’s finger and thumb, though thankfully, Aizen didn’t force him to look up at him.

“Good boy. You have your father’s potential, without his insufferable attitude. Perhaps you will serve me well in time with a bit of training as far as showing respect to one’s superiors. With some diligence on your part, you could even replace him. I don’t subscribe to the philosophy that the son should suffer for his father’s iniquities. Do you not agree?”

“Yes, Kami-sama,” Abisara whispered, refusing to look at the man. He settled on staring at Aizen’s obi, having no desire to see his gore-stained feet. The thumb on his chin moved to brush his cheek and it was all he could do not to duck away from that hand and run away as fast as he could.

“Very good. Let’s go see your sister. I haven’t told her about your parents’ betrayal. Such a revelation would break her delicate heart, and we couldn’t have that now, could we?”

Abisara nodded weakly. Aizen was right about that. Vindula would be devastated if she thought their parents and ‘Ji-ji were traitors and had left them to fend for themselves.

“I will inform her that the others remained in the north to do some work for me. Neither half of the Primera has the time to look after you, nor do his pets. As such, I took up the responsibility. I hope we have an understanding, Abisara Grantz.”

Abisara nodded his head again, unable to find his voice. So Aizen had already figured out how to keep Starrk and Lilynette from helping them the way he’d helped their father. That wasn’t good.

“Good lad. Take me to your family’s quarters. I want you to clean up, and pack a bag for yourself and your sister. You’ll not drag any trace of that thing into my Palace.”

Aizen thankfully released his chin and put his hand back on Abisara’s shoulder, putting some pressure on it. Then the monster led him from the room. The boy couldn’t help looking back at Mushi’s corpse, biting his lip to keep the tears that wanted to form out of his eyes. She hadn’t deserved to die like that. Maybe Orihime could revive her if she got here fast enough, but there was no way Aizen would let him detour to get to her and asked for her assistance. He was still stunned that the Scarab had even tried to defend him. Then again, maybe Mushi had _wanted_ to die. After all, life in a cage was no way to live, not for any sentient creature and there was no way they could risk letting her go.

With a sinking heart, Abisara wondered how long he would be able to live in whatever cage Aizen crafted for him before _he_ tried to kill himself. He could only pray that Aizen’s eyes would never look at Vindula the way they looked at his father… and at him.


	61. Gilded Cages

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should be less onions this chapter ;)

The guards let Soi Fon and Vindula into the Palace without any complications and a spooked serving girl led them to one of the many gardens. Soi Fon tried to keep her anger at the young woman’s state in check, knowing there was little she could do for her. Judging from the servant’s demeanour, Aizen probably spent time abusing the Palace staff when the mood struck him. She assumed he had sent word back to the Palace, for the staff clearly expected them. A full tea service, including refreshments, had been set out in anticipation of their arrival, but Vindula hardly noticed the food. Instead, the little girl let out a squeal of delight and fluttered over towards the nearest bed of flowers. The tulips were in various stages of bloom, from still closed to fully open. Whoever had planted them had an eye for mixing colors, with pinks, purples and whites vying for supremacy.

“Oh, Soi Fon-san, have you ever seen anything so beautiful?” Vindula gushed, her black curls bouncing as she went from bed to bed, admiring the unknown gardener’s handiwork.

Soi Fon couldn’t help but smile at her enthusiasm. That smile widened as she felt the child within her give an equally enthusiastic kick. It wouldn’t be too much longer now. Then it faded from her face as she thought of what was going to happen after she gave birth. Barragan had kicked her out and Ggio had already promised their child to Tesra and Tatsuki. That didn’t mean that she wouldn’t put it past the decrepit fossil to try to either kill her child to show Ggio the extent to which he owned his former fraccion, or to try to use his Claim upon Ggio to seize her daughter. At least she knew Tatsuki would let her see her child whenever possible, assuming she lived long after giving birth.

That was why she was here. Ggio’s Claim had faded to almost nothing and the stress of labour would likely destroy what remained of it. It was hard enough to keep her power in check in order to keep what was left of his Claim intact. She would be too weak afterwards for anyone else to cast a Claim upon her, and by Aizen’s own laws, she would face immediate execution. So here she was, about to debase herself before the tyrant who had taken everything from her for the sake of staying alive to see her child after it was born.

As hateful as licking his boots would be, there were no other realistic alternatives. Soi Fon could only hope ‘Kami’ was in a generous mood today and would give her the time she needed. As hard as she found it to grovel, at least she wasn’t doing it for herself. She was doing it for her daughter and Ggio’s sakes.

Sitting down at the table, she helped herself to the food. Her time as one of Barragan’s ‘pets’ had been one of deprivation and her tenure within the Onmitsukidō had taught her to take advantage of any opportunity to eat while under duress. The little one inside of her was constantly hungry and she wanted to present a confident front to Aizen when he arrived. The ability to eat and drink while standing in the lair of an enemy was a sign of strength, she told herself. The ex-Taichou kept one eye on Vindula-chan, but the little girl soon finished a very thorough examination of the garden, including the bamboo fountain in the corner and came away with a verdict of ‘no weeds,’ which hadn’t been the case with the gardens at the Ukitake Estate. Szayel’s daughter needed to do little to this well-manicured landscape. Soon the little girl joined her at the table to help her finish off the rest of the edibles. A silent servant refilled the teapot and juice pitcher when both ran low.

“Oh, do you think Kami-sama will let me have some of the seeds from his gardens if I asked?” Vindula suddenly asked.

Her chalkboard came out and she wrote out her response, a ‘maybe’ if she asked nicely, which was as much encouragement as she felt she could give. As far as she knew, Aizen had never shown any animosity towards any of the children, even when ‘the terrible trio’ headed by Ajuga had inadvertently demolished entire neighbourhoods with their games. In fact, she had the impression that it pleased Aizen to see so many adults running in circles around the three, which was somewhat ironic giving his supposed hatred of ‘chaos within his empire.’ Vindula’s request seemed like such a small thing that she couldn’t see why he would begrudge the child a few seeds or bulbs later on in the year, but she wasn’t Aizen either, something for which she was grateful. She might be without a voice, but her conscience and sense of decency was still intact. Soi Fon couldn’t really say the same about their ruler.

The pregnant woman noticed Aizen’s return long before Vindula. He also hadn’t come alone to the garden. Abisara, lugging a makeshift bundle under his arm, followed in Aizen’s wake, pale-faced and trying desperately to hide how terrified he was. For such a young child, he did a good job of smothering it beneath an impassive face and if she hadn’t spent the last week in his company, she might not have been able to read him as well as she did. She bowed appropriately, as did Vindula, whose curtsy would make even the stiffest of nobles nod their heads in approval of its elegance.

“Oh, Abisara-kun!” Vindula greeted her brother happily.

Abisara gave her a thin smile that barely qualified as one and moved to sit down next to his sibling, dumping the bundle on the stone patio. He said nothing and barely spared a glance at his twin, accepting the cup of tea she passed him. He didn’t drink from it. Instead, the pink-haired boy stared down into its depths, his pensive green eyes reflected in the hot, dark liquid. Instantly, Soi Fon went on alert, though she had far more experience covering up her emotions and maintained her composure. While the scent of flowers and tea filled her nose, she also got a hint of fresh soap, meaning he’d washed in the last half hour, though his hair was perfectly dry. Abarai’s schedule for the children involved a bath at bedtime, something Nanao insisted on continuing while they were staying with Starrk. Why had he washed at this point in the day?

Something had frightened him badly and it certainly wasn’t the soap. Abisara wasn’t the most expressive child she’d ever encountered but the way he held himself now was too ‘guarded,’ or perhaps, too shaken. Taking a sip of her tea, she studied him from beneath her lowered lashes.

 _Yes, definitely scared. I’ll bet I can guess who frightened him too,_ she reflected. _But why scare a small boy like this, when Aizen has never done so before?_

“Are you enjoying the gardens, Vindula-chan?” Aizen asked as the small winged girl poured him a cup of tea and Soi Fon decided to leave off scrutinizing Abisara in favour of observing Kami.

“Oh yes, Kami-sama,” Vindula answered cheerfully and then stammered, “I was wondering… I mean, I was _hoping_ …”

She stopped and blushed, suddenly embarrassed.

“Go on,” Aizen prompted.

“If you don’t mind, may I please have some seeds from the flowers in this garden for my own collection?” she asked shyly, rushing her words at the end.

“Of course. I’ll inform my gardener that he is to let some of the perennials go to seed this summer, so you may collect them later in the fall. If there is a particular bulb you fancy, make a note of its location and what it looks like, and you may take one or two to transplant when the foliage dies back.”

A delighted Vindula positively beamed at him, pleasure lighting up the young girl’s face at the granted request.

“Oh, thank you Kami-sama! I’ll take good care of them!” she promised. He gave the girl an indulgent smile and then turned his attention towards Soi Fon, the matter settled.

“There was something you wished to discus with me Soi Fon?”

Soi Fon nodded, and hesitantly handed over the chalkboard. She’d had the foresight to write out her request, as well as a short explanation of her conundrum, before his arrival. Aizen rested his head on his left hand while he read it. Vindula hummed to herself and Abisara kept staring at his cup while his tea grew cold. She could sympathize with him, as she tried to stave off the dread she felt. Aizen’s decision, if he made one, would determine whether she would live or die once her daughter was born.

“You’re in quite the fix, aren’t you, Soi Fon,” Aizen commented, handing her chalkboard back to her once he’d finished reading, “especially now that I’ve defeated the Swarm. I no longer have need of so many warriors.”

She felt a bit of fear when he said this, but she squashed it quickly, refusing to give in to panic. It was not yet time to beg for her life, though she reminded herself that begging in the pursuit of a specific goal, namely, her daughter’s life, wasn’t shameful if it brought about the result one wanted and no other alternatives existed.

“Have you found someone willing to Claim you?” Aizen inquired offhandedly.

Soi Fon wanted to sigh with relief at the lack of a ‘no’ from him and nodded. As far as she knew, Harribel had agreed to Claim her. Hana had delivered Harribel’s answer a day before the scouting party left for the north. The Third’s reputation was just as Karin had painted it. Harribel was shockingly decent for such a powerful Espada. She had never seen any signs of abuse on Toshiro, other than the woman’s fraccion swarming him when he was younger-looking than now and even that had stopped long ago. She seemed to prefer dealing with women on a day-to-day basis and if what Hana had said was true, Harribel loathed Barragan even more than Soi Fon did, which was saying something.

“Who?”

She cleared a space on the chalkboard and wrote out the answer. One of Aizen’s eyebrows rose a few inches, but he made no comment, nor shared his thoughts on the matter. Instead, he leaned back a bit and took another sip of his tea. She waited silently, resisting the urge to start begging and did the same, to keep her hands busy with the teacup instead of shaking.

“I understand your concern, and I am pleased you brought this to my attention instead of trying to hide it. While the Swarm has been defeated, there is no guarantee they might not return in the future. It’s also apparent I need to speak with Barragan again. He’s still quite upset at his deposition from ‘King’ of Hueco Mundo. One would think he’d have accepted his new place in the order of things by now.”

‘Upset’ was putting it politely. Barragan didn’t just have a stick up his ass when it came to the touchy subject of his former throne. The bastard had an entire _tree_ shoved up his nether regions, given the extents of his rants. He’d certainly lamented the loss of his crown often enough. He’d made Yumichika and Ggio suffer on the days his temper got the best of him. Aizen spoke up again, and she listened with the first traces of hope in some time.

“I will inject you with a tracking serum first thing tomorrow morning. Please report to the Science Division at eight am. After you have the child, I will give you time to recover up to half of your strength. You will then submit to Harribel’s Claim. Should you fail to do so, I will have you hunted down and I will personally execute you as an example to others. Fair enough?” he asked, the smile on his face growing a fraction wider.

As chilling as his threat was, his offer was better than what she’d expected, so she inclined her head, letting him know she agreed to his terms. What surprised her most was that Aizen wasn’t interested in making her plead for her life, nor was he interested in toying with her for the sake of entertaining himself. He usually enjoyed playing power games at others’ expense. Instead, it was almost as if his mind was elsewhere.

 _Perhaps, I am not the one he wishes to toy with,_ she realized as her eyes went to the slightly trembling Abisara. She truly pitied the boy. Once she got them home, she could ask him about what Aizen had said or done to upset him so badly.

“Is there anything else you want Soi Fon?” Aizen asked.

She shook her head.

“Then you are dismissed,” he told her and waved her away.

She rose and bowed before holding her hand out to a pouting Vindula-chan, who clearly didn’t want to leave just yet.

“Leave the child,” Aizen ordered. “In fact, leave them both.”

She stiffened at the order. Vindula looked happy at getting to stay longer, but Abisara lost what little color he had left. Aizen saw her hesitate and fixed her with a look that was no longer as smooth as it had been moments ago.

“Inform Starrk that, given the situation, I have decided it best to keep the twins here, in the safety of my Palace,” Aizen instructed her.

 _Situation? What situation?_ she wanted to ask. Only now did Vindula seem to notice that something was up. She looked up at Aizen fearfully.

“Did something happen to Papa?”

Aizen’s mouth curved up as he poured more tea for himself and wrapped his hand around the warm ceramic cup, fingers drumming on the glazed outer surface.

“I’ve asked your parents and your guardian to remain in the north with the Sixth and his pet. My forces destroyed the Swarm’s outpost there this morning, and routed the insects nesting there. However, as there were many new ‘specimens’ to catalogue from among the dead insects, and because I cannot assume that the hive we destroyed is the only one operating in the Soul Society, I felt it necessary to station them there for the time being. As the First will resume their duties tomorrow, and because Starrk’s pets have Divisions to run, I’ve decided that, to ensure your safety, you and your brother will remain here, with my wife and with me. You will have quarters assigned to you in the Palace until further notice, or until your parents and Grimmjow determine the Swarm is no longer a threat to the Seireitei.”

“But they’re alright?” Vindula asked.

The hair on the back of Soi Fon’s neck bristled and she snuck a quick look at Abisara. The boy had all but gone grey in the face but remained sitting. His white knuckles, however, betrayed how terrified he really was.

“They were quite alive when last I saw them,” Aizen replied, his voice warm and reassuring and Soi Fon knew then and there that if what Aizen had just told Vindula was true, Abisara wouldn’t look as if he was about to throw up.

When Vindula giggled and reached for her fruit juice, Aizen turned back to Soi Fon. His eyes were all business now and he let them slide down her form to rest on her extremely pregnant belly.

“You should take this afternoon to look after your own health, Soi Fon, rather than worrying about these two. I will see to their welfare. Stress can have a negative effect on a mother-to-be. I will see you this evening for the Victory Party, so deliver my message to the First Espada. I expect him and his pets to attend as well.”

Soi Fon set her jaw as she read between the lines. It was not only a firm dismissal, but he’d pointedly reminded her that he could easily rescind his decision regarding her Claim. She also got the impression that he would not be pleased if she didn’t leave immediately.

 _Aizen, you son of a bitch,_ she thought, watching Abisara sink even further into his seat, before schooling her temper. _If I could, I’d wipe that smug expression from your accursed face with two stings from Suzumebachi!_

Unfortunately, it wouldn’t do her or the twins any good if she stayed, so she gave them each a reassuring pat on the shoulder and did her best to remain calm as she bowed and retreated. Once she was past the Palace gates, she took off as quickly as her bloated belly would allow. She had to find Starrk, to let him know that Aizen had all but forced her to leave the twins in his custody. It had been a very long time since she’d used the tracking skills she’d honed with her old Division, and she hoped they hadn’t rusted too badly. The large bulge in her midsection and her child’s need to kick at regular intervals didn’t help matters either.

Thankfully, Starrk wasn’t hard to locate and when she did, she knew that her instincts regarding Abisara had been right. She found the male half of the First just leaving the Science and Research Building, concern clouding his features and making him look older and even wearier than normal. Starrk, like Abisara, rarely let his emotions surface, so seeing them now, in the wake of what had just occurred, signified that something huge had gone down and that she’d been correct to peg Aizen’s story as less than truthful.

He looked up as she approached. In turn, she pulled out her chalkboard and hurriedly wrote on it as she walked up to him. He accepted it once she was done and read her message. The woman watched as an expression she’d rarely seen on him, true anger, crept across his face. She even thought, with a little bit of alarm, that she saw a hint of teeth.

“Come,” he ordered, marching past her without another word, keeping her clipboard with him. Soi Fon followed the best she could, though he was thoughtful enough to pace his long-legged stride to let her keep up. He led her back to the Estate, where Jushiro and Nanao anxiously awaited them. Starrk handed the Taichou Soi Fon’s chalkboard as he marched past his ‘pet,’ making for his quarters, and then stopping at the hallway’s entrance.

“Did you find them?” Jushiro began, before Starrk cut him off.

“Yes. Get cleaned up and dressed in your Claiming Kimono. We have a ‘Celebration Party’ to attend,” the Espada snapped, his voice terse. Then he reached up and rubbed his forehead, as if he were trying to control the simmering rage she’d seen as she’d followed him back. “You two as well,” he nodded at her and a worried Nanao. For a moment, she wondered why the two Taichou were home this early in the afternoon, and then remembered Vindula’s concern about getting Ukitake his medicinal tea. Aizen would have ordered them to return to the Estate when he’d delivered the basket.

The three looked at each other apprehensively and nodded, then scattered to prepare for an evening out. Nanao gestured for her to follow her to the other woman’s quarters, leaving Jushiro to read what she’d written on the slate. She would retrieve it from him later. In the meantime, Nanao gave her an abbreviated explanation for the absence of the Sixth’s pack, or at least, what she knew were the facts. The former head of the Onmitsukidō assumed there was more to it than that, but getting a better picture would have to wait until tomorrow.

After a quick search of Nanao’s closet, Soi Fon accepted one of the Taichou’s nicer kimonos to wear. She’d arrived on Starrk’s doorstep in a plain, white yukata, the only garment to her name thanks to Barragan’s pettiness. Thankfully, Ukitake’s sisters had left behind plenty of clothing when they’d fled, and Ukitake was happy to let both women make use of them.

She felt her heartbeat quicken at the thought of going to this party, though not because she wanted to attend anything that glorified Aizen or his supposed accomplishments. No, she wanted to attend because there was a very good chance she would get to see Ggio and Yumichika, and while Ggio could not talk to her, he could still speak to Yumichika. If she just happened to be standing within earshot while he did so, well, all the better.

Gin surveyed the party. Technically, his job was to oversee the workings of the servers, directing them to keep the food and drink flowing to not just the Espada, but to the Arrancar population as a whole. Aizen had spared no expense and the kitchen staff had immediately gone into high gear the moment ‘Kami’ had walked through the doors and ordered that they prepare a feast for several hundred guests. He’d been busy installing Aizen’s newest plaything in her suite when the order came down, but from the uproar behind the kitchen doors, the chef and his cooks had been blindsided by the need for a celebratory feast. He knew they’d sent runners to the markets to buy out whatever they could find as far as foodstuffs. The mad scramble to assemble something that met Kami’s standards as far as quality and taste had a ‘do or die’ aspect to it.

As much as he tried to avoid it, his eyes always wandered back to Rangiku, sitting in Nnoitra’s lap and keeping her head down. How he wanted to go over and talk to her, but he had duties and, considering Aizen’s mood, shirking them would not be wise. Doing so would do her no favours either, considering Nnoitra’s possessiveness and temper. Instead, he kept his distance and kept the servants running back and forth to refill every platter as it emptied. Aizen had mandated that every Arrancar household attend, along with their pets, so despite the kitchen’s best efforts, the food was going fast. It didn’t help that Yammy had declared an entire table ‘his’ and had forced his unhappy pet to hand feed him while the Tenth groped and pawed at him. Judging by the unfortunately familiar way the noble sat, Yammy had given his pet a solid riding when he’d returned.

As fast as Yammy packed the food down his gullet, there were plenty of women in the crowd in the process of ‘out-eating’ the brute. Carrying their Masters’ spawn had made them ravenous, Rangiku, Tatsuki and Soi Fon all appeared to have healthy appetites, and the male ‘owners’ of almost every pregnant Shinigami readily heaped food on their plates as needed, encouraging them to eat as much as they liked. The notably fewer pregnant Arrancar females needed no such prompting from their male pets, most of whom still had a kind of ‘dazed’ look on their faces, even a week after getting the news. Those ladies had immediately tucked into the fare Kami provided with gusto and no apologies. Toshiro appeared to be the lone exception to the rule, his expression stoic as he refilled his Mistress’s plate and her teacup.

Unohana, he knew, would keep her eyes on the situation, but so far, most of the male Arrancar were thrilled with the prospect of upcoming cubs. It was as if someone had hit a switch on their behaviour once they learned their pets were carrying their cubs. His mistress had confided in him that in many of the women’s cases, this was the best that _anyone_ had ever treated them be they Shinigami _or_ Arrancar. Their Masters doted on them and took a great deal of interest in their health and well-being. That included increased levels of affection in most cases.

 _A’ lest they ‘ave good paren’ing skills,_ he conceded. _Na tha’ we actually built tha’ inta’ ‘em. Who knew?_

The pregnancy boom was unprecedented and Unohana had ordered the small maternity ward at the 4th Division expanded. Maybe now that the war party had annihilated the Swarm's base, they wouldn’t need as many beds for those injured during the repeated attacks. The birth rate in the Seireitei and among the Gotei 13 prior to the invasion had been notoriously low, perhaps one a year at most. To the best of Gin’s knowledge, Harribel had been the first pregnant female among the Arrancar, and they’d been meddling in Las Noches for over one hundred years. He would have thought that a pregnancy would have happened far sooner, given the proclivities of more than a few of the female Arrancar that Aizen had created over the last century.

According to Szayel and Unohana’s research, when the current epidemic of conceptions began, it almost seemed as if the fertility rate for a Shinigami/Arrancar pairing was much higher than with pairings consisting of two Shinigami or two Arrancar, especially when each partner’s reiatsu levels began to align with the other. Unfortunately, Unohana wasn’t as interested in the ‘why’ of it as Szayel. Instead, the healer busied herself making sure that _all_ of the women, Shinigami and Arrancar, made it through their pregnancies in one piece and delivered healthy children. Fortunately, the base creatures of the Arrancar parents affected each couple’s due dates, which meant the 4th Division didn’t need to worry about forty or so woman showing up all at once and going into labour.

Speaking of cubs… Gin sighed and watched the only two children in attendance.

He was surprised to see Abisara and Vindula here, given the day’s earlier proclamation. Starrk had arrived early, with Jushiro, Nanao and a very concerned Soi Fon trailing in his wake. The First and Aizen had apparently shared a short conversation with the twins as its subject, and while Starrk appeared less than happy with the outcome of the ‘talk,’ he hadn’t tried to do anything about the fact that Aizen had all but snatched part of his extended pack out from under him. Right now, Starrk had wandered over the Harribel’s little enclave and engaged the pregnant Espada with small talk. Harribel’s plate was nearly as loaded as Yammy’s was, despite being so early in her pregnancy and Toshiro made certain that it never ran empty.

Gin decided that the cub growing within the Aspect of Death by Sacrifice, disrupting the very dimensions of her formidable mask, would be one fascinating creature. Unohana was so perplexed over the entire situation she had actually asked for Gin’s opinion on it, hoping that he had some information she might find useful. He might be a slave, but he had spent more than his share of time among Hollows of all sorts over the years. Regrettably, he was as stumped as she was.

_An’ Szayel ain’t here no more ta help it along._

The thought depressed him. He’d always liked Harribel, once Aizen had elevated her and her girls from a Vasto Lorde and her sworn Adjuchas to the Arrancar they were now. Then again, he’d liked her predecessor as well. The two were quite similar, save for poor Nel’s lack of enthusiasm for conflict and her bad luck at attracting Nnoitra Gilga’s attention. He hoped for her sake that Harribel’s pregnancy would be free of complications.

Gin picked up yet another empty tray and handed it to a waiting servant girl, clearing the table for a platter of tempura fish and seaweed-wrapped mochi stuffed with pickled plums. Apparently, these seemed to be a hit with the pregnant women of both races and he had to quickly step to the side as those with dinner plate duty made a rush for the food. The last think he needed was a good trampling.

_Easy now, fellas… th’ cooks c’n make more. Les’ na fight over’a buncha sour plums here!_

What he really wanted to do was to sidle up to Starrk and let him know Aizen had secreted Karin away in the Palace. That was easier said than done, but not impossible. He just had to go about it in a way that the ever-observant Kami wouldn’t notice. The crafty bastard probably knew his servant would be tempted to risk squealing about her whereabouts, even with such a horrendous threat hanging over his head. Gin suspected Aizen of giving him the thankless task of riding herd on a pack of overworked servants in the midst of a huge party in order to keep him too busy to think about chatting with anyone else. As such, there was no outright way to talk easily to the First, who was listening to Orihime gush about something or other, while Ulquiorra stood impassively behind her.

“Gin.”

He turned on one heel and bowed low as Aizen came up beside him.

“It is getting late. See Vindula-chan and Abisara-kun to bed. The room at the end of the hall will do. Then make sure my new acquisition gets something to eat. I will not have her starve herself in an ill-conceived attempt to deny me my desires.”

Gin wasn’t sure if Karin were capable of doing something like that, but questioning the command was a good way to earn a whipping or worse, so he bowed instead.

“Hai, Kami-sama.”

When he straightened back up, Aizen had moved away to speak with a very-pleased-with-himself Nnoitra, and when he saw where the children had ended up, an idea bubbled to life in his head as to getting a message to the appropriate folk about Karin.

He picked his way over to one of the tables and filled up one of the remaining clean plates with enough party food for two people. The underlying meaning of the order told him that Aizen would punish him if Karin chose not to feed herself. He prayed she wouldn’t give him any troubles and would eat without a fuss. Once he’d finished and had Karin’s ‘meal’ balanced in one hand, he walked towards the First’s household. Abisara was trying to blend into a shadow along the courtyard wall and Vindula dozed next to Jushiro, her head resting in his lap. The white-haired Taichou regarded him stonily as he approached.

Perhaps he couldn’t speak to Starrk directly, but Jushiro might be quick enough to catch a quickly dropped hint. He wouldn’t have a better opportunity than this and knew he had to make it count.

“I need ta get tha young’ens ta bed,” he explained, gesturing towards Vindula.

“Of course,” Jushiro sighed, looking down sadly at the child, then asked “Will she be safe here Gin?”

“Her, yes,” Gin assured him, and his voice dropped in volume, barely discernible over the general merriment and the crackling of the large bonfire. “Others, not so much.”

Jushiro regarded him carefully, before his brown eyes moved to the plate of food in Gin’s hand. Everyone knew Aizen starved him, so the food was clearly not his. Unohana was already here, sitting in her usual place next to Kami and eating. Nanao had handed each child a plate of food the moment Aizen had allowed them into the hall and both would soon be asleep. For a moment, it seemed as if Jushiro wanted to say something, but then stopped and looked away. The man was smart enough to know not to nod, or even acknowledge the words Gin had tacked on to his answer and for that, the former Taichou was grateful.

Now all he could hope for was that Jushiro would draw the right conclusions and tell Starrk. It was a long shot, but he’d done what he could. The rest was up to Starrk’s pack.

He watched as the older Shinigami roused Vindula, who looked up at him blearily and yawned.

“C’mon, ‘dula-chan. Bedtime,” Gin announced, and held out his free hand. The smile he gave her was weak, but at least it was genuine.

“ ‘kay,” she responded, climbing unsteadily to her feet and rubbing her eyes. “G’night, ‘take-san,” she murmured.

“Good night Vindula-chan,” Jushiro replied and then started as Vindula reached up and gave him a hug.

“Th’nks for looking after us, ‘take-san. It was fun!”

Gin thought he saw Jushiro’s throat work a bit, as he patted the child between her wings, before he allowed Aizen’s slave to lead her away. Vindula grabbed his free hand and followed him readily enough, showing no sign that she expected to stay with Starrk’s pack tonight. Therefore, she’d known about Aizen’s plans to keep her and her brother here.

At least that gave Gin some idea as to what had gone on between Aizen and Starrk. Some of it probably had to do with Hana as well. No wonder Starrk looked out of sorts this evening, despite his willingness to talk civilly with others. With Nanao’s daughter missing and the twins neatly stripped from his custody, Starrk had to be ready to bite bullets. Lilynette’s absence wasn’t likely a mistake either. He could only imagine what the smaller half of the First had to say about the whole mess. Leaving her at home to mind the fort might have been a good idea.

 _Probl’y been swearin’ like a sailor,_ he decided.

His veiled warning could also apply to Vindula’s brother. He’d been present when Aizen had threatened Szayel with his son’s welfare, hinting that Abisara would share his father’s spot in the dungeon if Szayel didn’t watch his step, so he knew that only the thinnest of lines kept Abisara out of that cursed place. Neither the boy nor Karin were safe here and if a threat against either lit a fire under Starrk’s tail, that was fine by Gin.

Unlike his sister, Abisara was more than happy to leave the party and followed him without a complaint back to the Palace. When he was certain Aizen’s eyes were no longer on him, he stopped one of the serving girls on her way back to the kitchen with an empty tray and handed her the plate of party food. Instructing her to ‘find a home for it,’ he told her to bring a pot of tea and some better, more substantial food fit for a real meal to Aizen’s private wing of the Palace. When she blanched, he quickly assured her that all she was required to do was to bring the food, then resume her serving duties. She scuttled away with the hors d'oeuvres, sending a grateful look over her shoulder.

Gin steered the children through the Palace’s corridors and up a few staircases to the room that Kami had picked out for them. Abisara seemed very relieved that he and his sister were to remain together. Vindula was nearly asleep on her feet and her wrung out, ashen-faced brother was little better. Someone had put a bundle of what turned out to be the children’s clothes, toothbrushes and combs in the middle of the bed, all wrapped up in a bed sheet. He looked down at Abisara and the boy muttered that Aizen had made him bring some things from home when Kami had gone to fetch him.

He gave their faces and hands a quick scrubbing, dressed them in their nightclothes and tucked both of them in, wishing them goodnight. Then he extinguished all but one of the lanterns in their room, lest either need a light to make it to the bathroom.

Gin then made his way to the other occupied room just down the hall. The servant girl finally showed up with the requested meal and he sent her on her way with a muttered ‘thanks’ before he knocked on the door. He truly hoped Karin wouldn’t prove too difficult to deal with, though he wouldn’t blame her for wanting to keep their overlord from getting what he wanted too quickly. If she chose to act up, Gin would be the one Aizen punished. He’d done what he could to get word to Starrk about what had happened to her and maybe she’d take pity on him and not prove too reckless in how she chose to defy the tyrant.

As it was, Gin wasn’t looking forward to the next several hours. Aizen was already pissed about losing his favourite toy today and he could only hope that the prospect of a younger broodmare with direct ties to the Throne proved enough to stay Kami’s hand later this evening.

Karin sat on a chair on the balcony attached to her new cell, watching the sunset and doing her best to meditate. It was hard to concentrate with the negative feedback coming from Grimmjow and Szayel. The extreme distance between them muted both Claims and considering how upset both Espada were, she was grateful for the mitigation. Grimmjow’s initial rage had backed off to a dull, simmering anger, while Szayel remained stricken over leaving his children behind. Thankfully, his earlier hysteria had abated somewhat, but both sets of extra ‘input’ made her head hurt and did nothing for her ability to focus.

What Karin wasn’t pleased to see was the presence of two small, unfortunately familiar signatures down the hall. Both were asleep and unharmed, for which she was grateful, but the fact they were here at all told her that Aizen had just gained two more pawns he could use against her. She wondered how long they’d been there. The bastard certainly hadn’t wasted any time securing the two. It was, she knew, one of his favourite ways of manipulating people without actually having to dirty his hands. She hoped she wouldn’t have to resort to obeying him in order to ensure the twins’ continued safety, but she didn’t think he’d play that card right away. Instead, he’d hold it in reserve, until he grew tired of the manoeuvring and threw down the one card that would trump the few she had.

She just had to keep him interested long enough to give Szayel, Yoruichi, and her mate a chance to come up with a rescue plan. Starrk had to be livid about the children’s confiscation and Lilynette… Kami, Karin realized, Lilynette had to be chewing _bricks_ about not only Hana and Ajuga, but also the loss of Grimmjow and Szayel’s packs. She could only hope that the First’s female half was smart enough not to try to do anything about it on her own.

The irony of Aizen’s actions made her snort angrily. If Starrk’s loyalty hadn’t already been fraying at the edges, the gutting of his household would have provided all of the motivation the First would have needed to join Grimmjow, Szayel, and Harribel in their revolt had they managed to get him to sign on before this clusterfuck occurred. Whether Starrk would do anything remained questionable and Karin knew better than to try to make any concrete plans when it came to the Aspect of Loneliness.

Sighing, she pulled her mind away from the Claims and looked over to where the light of a large bonfire was slowly becoming more visible as the night darkened. She could hear the sounds of the party from here and smell the wood smoke. The reiatsu of every Arrancar in Aizen’s army as well as their respective pets glimmered against the heat and light the fire created, and Karin couldn’t begrudge the majority of them the desire to celebrate the Swarm’s defeat. The war had been long, tiring, and costly in both resources and lives. It wasn’t their fault that the very reason that the Swarm had attacked in the first place was the one to throw the festivities.

At least she wouldn’t have to worry about the Swarm any longer, though she wished all kinds of foul retribution on Zee for his duplicity and for what it had wrought. With Ajuga on the throne, the Swarm had no further reason to attack the Seireitei, until Aizen managed to kill her daughter. By then, he would have a proper Heir ready to ennoble his bloodline, and Aizen would truly become the Spirit King he sought to be, granting him all the abilities he’d previously lacked to keep the Realms stable. Once that happened, Zee and his ilk would no longer care about the fate of those directly under Aizen’s thumb.

The human woman chased the thought away before she succumbed to depression. Such an outcome would not happen, Karin told herself. With Szayel’s intelligence, the Escapees’ combined strength and the allies that remained behind, Aizen’s days were numbered. She would just have to get through those days one at a time and stay strong.

A polite knock sounded behind her and she looked over her shoulder, identifying Gin before he walked through the unlocked door. He left her no time to answer. Carrying a tray of food and tea, the slave walked quietly across the room and placed it on her chamber’s only table.

Karin hadn’t been thrilled to have him bathe her and touch her in spots that only her mate had heretofore seen. However, the scars that littered his body put Szayel’s skin to shame and the infringement on her modesty was a small price to pay to keep Aizen from hurting the man. Gin would make a better ally than an enemy and she saw no reason to do anything that would turn him towards the latter status. Maybe, if she could get him to listen to her, she could convince him to relay a message from her to Starrk and Jushiro.

“Karin-sama, can I int’rest you in som’ing to eat?” he asked.

She looked dispassionately at the fare on the table. He’d brought her a bowl of what looked like udon soup and a plate of rice, fish, and vegetables. She really didn’t feel like eating and was about to refuse and say she wasn’t hungry before noting the haunted look in his eyes.

“If I don’t eat, will you be punished?” she asked him.

Gin’s silence was enough of an answer. Instead, he poured her a cup of tea and then set the pot back on the ceramic trivet with a decided ‘clink.’ She stared at the set up for a moment longer before walking to the table, taking a seat, and picking up the chopsticks. The food had little flavour and it was hard to force down, but she ate it anyway. The relief on the slave’s face as she methodically ate told her that things would not have gone well for him if he’d returned with a full tray.

While she choked her dinner down, he set about lighting the lamps in her room and turned down the bed so that she could crawl into it after she finished. Karin chose not to look at the bed; it reminded her of what she had sacrificed to keep her family safe. She knew she had a few days grace to dance around Aizen’s game, just as she also knew he would eventually grow bored and find a way around her ability to cast a Claim.

That thought made her lose what little appetite she had, and she put down her utensils, unable to take another bite. Gin moved to stand next to her, looking at the half-eaten plate and shaking his head, as if her efforts weren’t enough.

“Do you want the rest of this?” Karin didn’t’ bother to look his way to see if he did or not. “You look like you could use it. Aizen can no longer use the power the Throne gave him to spy on others. He lost it to Ajuga-chan.”

Gin’s hands stilled as he reached to fluff the pillows on the bed and for once, she could see his blue eyes as they opened wide in surprise at her news. He remained that way for a few seconds, and then chuckled tiredly.

“So a kid managed ta best ‘im. T’night won’t be pretty.”

Despite this, the thin man sat down across from her and pulled what was left of her meal away. “Not tha’ it could get any worse should he fin’ out.”

“No, it couldn’t,” Karin agreed, watching him sadly as he avidly devoured her scraps. Aizen did not take good care of his ‘toys.’ If the worst should happen, should Grimmjow fail to rescue her and Aizen managed to ascend the Throne legitimately, she vowed to find a way to kill herself. He’d already promised to keep her around as one of his playthings, so she took Gin’s current condition as a preview of the sort of treatment she could expect.

“So, wha’ did ‘appen up there?”

Gin’s curiosity was certainly robust, even if Aizen had starved his slave’s body. Sighing, Karin relayed the story. By the time she was done, Gin informed her that he needed to leave, though she thought he seemed somewhat unsettled with what she’d told him. He took the teapot and tray with him and Karin walked back out onto the balcony.

The light from the bonfire and the number of reiatsu signatures she ‘saw’ signified that the party was still in full swing. She forlornly reached out and tried to touch them, but none of them acknowledged her presence. From the lack of reaction, Karin surmised that Aizen must still have her cloaked with his Zanpakuto.

With nothing better to do, Karin remained on the balcony, curled up in her chair and staring out at nothing at all as the night wore on. Staring at nothing was preferable to staring at the room on the other end of the hall. Aizen, Gin and Unohana were currently there and she had no doubt that the room belonged to the healer, and figured that Aizen was ‘busy’ with his wife. Because she willfully ignored what was going on, Karin almost jumped when Gin entered her room once more. A glance behind her showed Unohana and Aizen still engaged and she quickly looked in a different direction.

“What do you want Gin?” she asked wearily.

“Aizen expects me to prepare his consorts,” Gin replied softly, placing his hands on the back of the chair. Karin had to think for a moment before she realized what he meant before her face twisted in disgust. She folded her arms across her chest, sickened by the idea.

“Forget it. Besides, I won’t lie on my back and spread my legs for him.”

Karin stood up and pivoted to face Gin, her expression going cold. “I suppose you were ordered to use force if need be?”

“I would sooner not,” he sighed sadly, looking out over the dark garden. “Aizen ‘lways gets wha’ he wants ‘n th’ end. One way’r ‘nother, dependin’ on how much pain ya wanna go through ‘fore ya give it ta ‘im.”

They remained silent, both of them looking out at the devastatingly beautiful gardens under the nearly full moon. The flowers, all pale shades during the daylight hours, turned white and silvery-gray in the moonlight. She had a hard time reconciling how a fiend like Aizen could have such an eye for beauty.

“You might as well go, Gin,” Karin finally told him. “If Aizen asks, just tell him I Claimed you and ordered you to get lost. He can’t see them anyway and you are powerful enough to break whatever I cast, though I’m not certain how long it would take you to do so. I’m maintaining Szayel’s Claim with everything I have. Just let him believe it broke in the morning.”

“An intriguin’ thought. If tha’ is what ya wish,” Gin bowed to her before leaving.

Karin stood looking out at the garden for a moment longer. A glance back at the party showed almost everyone had gone home, although a few still remained. It was getting late and it had been a very long day. With a sigh, she turned her back to the garden and walked back inside, closing the balcony doors as she did so. She slipped into Jinzen and sent her reiatsu about her, creating a web of power around her bedroom. Satisfied, she finally looked at the bed.

Only a fool would be frightened of an inanimate object, Karin told herself. Scowling, she crawled between the sheets and pulled the covers over her. She fell asleep easier than she would have thought, drained from the day’s cumulative stresses and the seven days’ hard travel prior.

It was late at night, probably early morning actually, when she was jerked awake, her web of reiatsu had been disturbed. Her glasses were askew, but they covered her eyes enough so that Aizen’s overwhelming reiatsu failed to blind her. When she found Szayel again, she was going to see if he could make some sort of contact lenses instead.

“It won’t be that easy, Kami-sama,” Karin spoke up, letting him know she was awake, even though he probably already knew. He couldn’t have missed triggering her warning system.

He answered her with a laugh and then Aizen walked into her field of vision.

“A clever defence,” he praised, waving his hand to indicate the web of reiatsu that covered the room. She doubted he saw it in the same way that she did, but he could clearly feel it and knew it was there. “I am going to _enjoy_ playing with you. Unlike my wife, I find the shape of your body pleasing.”

“I will kill myself first before living the rest of my life as one of your sex toys,” she said coldly.

Aizen laughed again and sat on the edge of the bed. Despite herself, she sat up and moved back a bit, preparing to defend herself from him.

“Those are _very_ bold words,” he informed her and then examined his fingernails. “I have heard them hundreds of times, from hundreds of others and they’re always a lie. The will to live is stronger than I think you realize.” The tyrant stood and pursed his lips. “Again, I find myself lamenting the fact that I paid more attention to Ichigo. Well,” he amended, “perhaps I was blinded by raw power, as it’s such an attractive trait, rather than taking the time to observe you and your sister more closely. Regrettably, time is a luxury I no longer have, thanks to your daughter.”

Aizen’s smile turned malicious and she felt a shiver of fear run up her spine at the sight of it. “In two days you will present your body to me of your own free will. You will lay there while I fuck you over and over again until your body swells with my seed and you give me the Heir to which I am entitled.”

Karin bared her teeth at him and his presumptions. She pulled the blankets higher, leaving her hands where he could see them, to let him know that she was more than capable of Claiming him if he chose to try anything. His brown eyes, appearing almost black in the moonlight, drifted down to them before he made a ‘tsk’ sound in the darkness.

“That reminds me. You’ll need a manicure in the morning. I expect perfection of my consorts. Sweet dreams, Karin-chan,” Aizen bade as he turned on his heel and left.

Karin was unable to go back to sleep and latched onto the Claim she shared with her mate. It was late, she wasn’t getting much from him and she hoped he was asleep. Still, just knowing he was alive and unharmed helped to calm her racing heart.

“He will come,” she whispered, clenching her knees to her chest as the hours wore on and the sky beyond her balcony and the garden lightened with the approach of dawn. “He has to come.”


	62. Morning

The sun slowly lit up her room as it peeked above the horizon, but Karin didn’t bother moving from her place on her bed. She sent her mind down the Claim again, as she had done for most of the night since Aizen’s intrusion. Grimmjow was awake now, but he still seemed groggy. Maybe Nemu had tranquilized him again, or it might have been the aftereffects of the first dose. She sent a wave of love his way, but she couldn’t tell if he received it or not. Szayel had once mentioned that Karin seemed to be more sensitive to Claims than most Hollows. He’d gone into great detail about the ‘how and why’, but she really only understood the basic ‘her human, them Hollow’ portion of his speech. If that was true, there was little evidence of it this morning.

After checking on Grimmjow, she looked in on Szayel. The impression was even weaker since it was only a one-way bond, but she managed to get a small dose of despair from him, indicating he was awake and undoubtedly worried. Karin wondered if he had even slept last night. She hadn’t gotten much rest, thanks to that prick Aizen.

_At least I know they are both safe, which means the others are fine too,_ she deduced with a great deal of relief. If something had happened to Ajuga, well, she would have detected the rage that would have consumed Grimmjow and Szayel would be in a blind panic.

Gin and Unohana stirred in their chamber. As far as she could tell, Gin slept on the floor in Unohana’s room like a dog. The two moved about together and Karin guessed the man was preparing Unohana for the day, much as he had prepared her yesterday, bathing and grooming Aizen’s wife until she glowed. An hour later, Aizen joined them in Unohana’s room and Gin moved towards hers, using the hallway instead of going through the doors that connected Aizen’s personal chambers to both her and Unohana’s rooms. She turned her eyes away, having no desire to eavesdrop on Aizen’s rape of his wife. Karin knew that despite their marital status and Unohana lying obediently beneath him, it was rape.

“Come in Gin,” she called before he could knock.

“Mornin,’ Karin-sama. I am ta’ make ya presen’able for Aizen-kami,” Gin announced.

“You mean he wants you to bathe me again?”

Her apprehension was plain, and she hoped that by ‘preparing her,’ he meant _only_ a bath and nothing else.

“M‘fraid so. Ev’ry day, twice a day,” he replied. “He wan’s perfection in his acquisitions. I have ta see ta it.”

“I can wash myself,” she complained, but did crawl out from beneath the covers, since getting Gin into trouble over something as minor as a bath didn’t seem right. At least this time, she took what he said to mean he wasn’t going to have to lick her. _That_ had been disturbing and awful. Aizen could take that idea and shove it.

“Thank ya. He gets upset if things ain’t done right.”

She didn’t bother responding and followed him out of her room and down the hall to the large bathroom attached to Unohana’s chambers, making sure to keep her gaze away from the bedroom as she did so. She really didn’t like Gin touching her in intimate places, and it was awkward being naked with him, but he at least made sure to wash her quickly. It made the ordeal easier to bear.

When he finished, he got her to sit at the vanity and set to work on the rest of her. He was skilled with a brush and never tugged too harsh once. He even braided her hair in an elegant, elaborate fashion that seemed like several braids all coming together at the end.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I been ordered to,” he answered.

So Aizen wasn’t just going to control her location and freedom, he was going to control as much of her as he could.

“The design is mine tho’,” he assured her when he caught the stiffening of her shoulders.

Gin held up a mirror so she could see his work, which was surprisingly pretty.

_Too bad Yuzu couldn’t see this,_ she thought, recalling all of the times her sister had ‘humph-ed’ in exasperation when she had refused to do anything more with her hair than toss it in a quick ponytail, or worse, cut it short.

“I like it.”

Her admission seemed to please him, and it wasn’t as if he hadn’t done a good job with it. After he’d taken care of her hair, he helped her dress in a plain black silk yukata with a bright, blue obi tied in the back. That was a bit of a relief as she had half expected to be dressed in an expensive, restrictive and uncomfortable kimono, much like the ones Yammy had originally forced Byakuya to wear before deciding he was more into bondage, leather and skin. Once he’d tied her sash and found the proper footwear for her, Gin led her into Unohana’s room as opposed to escorting her back to her own chamber. The sight that greeted her shocked her and made her grind her molars.

The Taichou of the 4th Division lay on her back on her bed completely naked in an obvious effort to help speed a conception. Aizen was thankfully absent.

“Karin!”

Unohana stared at her in surprise, but didn’t move just yet from her place on her back.

“Good morning, Unohana-san,” she greeted the woman while her cheeks burned, and then had to look away as Gin moved to settle between the woman’s legs, cleaning up Aizen’s mess with his tongue. The tyrant had sick tastes all right and she was starting to second-guess her decision to remain behind as bait.

_There is no way I’ll let Gin’s mouth anywhere near me!_ she resolved.

“I take it you are the one my husband wants me to examine?”

She nodded, keeping her eyes on the window and wishing she could covertly cover her ears so as not to be rude. The only thing that kept her from sinking through the floor in embarrassment at seeing what had to be a humiliating thing for the two of them was the understanding that neither of them had a choice in the matter.

When the wet, lapping sounds from the bed ceased, Karin turned around and watched Gin help Unohana to her feet. Opening a trunk, he pulled a clean uniform and undergarments from the chest, then helped his mistress dress for the day.

“Forgive me, but may I ask why you are here?”

Karin supposed her real question was ‘why are you here and not with your mate in exile,’ or perhaps she meant, ‘why aren’t you in hiding, or locked away in a cell?’ Unohana had to have heard the news about the ‘traitors’ by now, so her confusion was understandable. The younger woman let her shoulders slump.

“He found out that I am the late Spirit King’s granddaughter.”

“I see.”

It was hard for her to see the pity growing in Unohana’s eyes. If anyone could understand Karin’s current position, it would be her.

“Please lie down so I may begin my examination.” The healer gestured towards the couch.

“Yeah, sure,” she sighed, happy that Unohana hadn’t asked her to go anywhere near the bed. She made herself comfortable and stared up at the ceiling as Unohana settled down beside her. “So, what are you going to be looking for, other than to see if I am healthy and fit for childbearing?” she asked resentfully.

“Irrefutable proof of your Royal lineage, though I have little doubt that you are who you say you are. I knew Isshin well enough, though those three boys did everything that they could to hide his real identity. The late Soutaichou occasionally confided in me too, primarily because he knew I could keep a secret.”

Unohana offered her a melancholy smile. “Unfortunately, Aizen will want confirmation, to prove that you’re telling the truth. Gin, please fetch my supply bag.”

The servant gathered up the soiled bed sheets into a pile before he darted into the closet again and returned with what looked like one of the utility satchels she’d seen the members of the 4th Division carrying around the Seireitei, or on the field after a battle. He handed it over and she thanked him before he returned to his chores.

“I will need to draw some blood and examine it back at the Division.”

“Just don’t use any machines. My blood blows them up,” Karin cautioned her. “Szayel learned that the hard way. Even I don’t know how many of them he went through before finally giving up.”

“So Szayel knew of your ancestry?”

“Yeah. He’s known for a while,” Karin admitted.

There was no point in hiding Szayel’s involvement any longer. Aizen was too smart not to have deduced that the Seventh had kept the information from him by now. After all, he was well aware of the number of times Szayel had drawn and examined her blood.

“He destroyed all the evidence years ago, sometime after I Claimed him. He didn’t want to risk Aizen finding out, especially since he had known since before I Claimed him.”

That meant that Szayel was as good as condemned. Aizen would just kill Grimmjow, but Szayel… he was doomed to being nothing more than Aizen’s fuck toy if he ever fell into the bastard’s hands. She had seen what such a life had done to Byakuya, could see it right in front of her in Gin, and she would argue that Aizen would treat Szayel far, far worse than either of those two. Despite the times that Yammy had taken a beating too far, Byakuya was still somewhat functional. The acts that Aizen enjoyed made Yammy look as harmless as a newborn kitten.

“Yes, I could see how that would turn out badly for him. At least now I know why Nemu was going through my records every time she came for a fertility boost.” Unohana shook her head in exasperation, recalling the intrusions. “However, giving the circumstances and the nature of the information, I am glad she didn’t just ask around for assistance. Your secret would have been revealed far sooner, had Aizen learned that you had a blood anomaly.”

The human woman inclined her head hoping to mollify Unohana.

“It’s Nemu. She probably didn’t need any help.”

“True. The 4th Division’s systems would be child’s play for her to manipulate.”

Karin sat still while the Taichou gave her a quick examination and drew blood. Gin continued to do housework in the background, moving at a frantic pace. He acted like a man with too much to do, not enough time to do it in, and who feared retribution for not completing the impossible on time. Like Gin, Unohana didn’t dawdle and Karin was not surprised to learn she was exceptionally healthy and fit. The exam concluded with questions, mainly about her cycle sequence, to determine when her prime fertility time would occur.

Gin then escorted her back to her room where he asked her to remain. The look in his eye spoke volumes about what would happen to him if she didn’t, while he and Unohana carried on for the day.

Her room was fancy, similar to Unohana’s, although hers lacked the large bathing chamber. It did have a small bathroom with a shower, a sink and a toilet, so she counted herself lucky that she wouldn’t need to go down the hall all the time. Both rooms were devoid of anything she could use in lieu of a sword, but she thought that was just as well. She had no training in the use of a blade and she’d probably do herself more harm than Aizen if one fell into her hands. However, there were enough things she could break, throw or fuse her reiatsu into to use as efficient weapons if it came down to it. After determining weapon choices and escape routes, she set about refining her Kido alarm net, adding some finesse to the hastily created design she’d used last night. It would work for now to warn her of Aizen’s attempt to sneak in on her. Above all, she had to prevent him from sealing her reiatsu. Her ability to cast Claims by touch was the only defence she had against him.

Unohana walked down the hallway towards the dining room, Gin trailing like a ghost after her. Karin’s unexpected appearance this morning had shaken her. She had thought that her ‘husband’ had managed to knock up one of the many servant girls. Such a scenario had been unlikely, but plausible. It wasn’t unheard of for nobles to partake of common women, leaving behind illegitimate, bastard children. Now she truly understood why he had stressed the importance of keeping her mouth shut about this patient if she didn’t want Gin’s tongue sliced out of his mouth and her entire Division divvied out to his Arrancar for their amusement. He’d made the threat casually, as he’d pulled himself from her that morning.

The poor child… as soon as Aizen was ready for her, Karin was probably going to spend more time under Aizen in a day than Unohana did in a week. What little Royal blood Unohana could lay claim to was very weak, the bloodline passed down to her by a mother with a noble grandfather. If Karin was right, especially if Ajuga had sat on the Throne as Gin reported to her last night, then the poor child had a very strong chance of finally conceiving the heir Aizen wanted. Her husband would then hunt Ajuga down with all of his resources as well as any Consort she may have chosen. Furthermore, once he’d truly taken the Spirit King’s Throne, Aizen would have no further use for her, other than in an official capacity. Even if she were to conceive before Karin, she regrettably knew her husband too well. Lean and athletic, with medium-sized breasts and of average height, Karin fit the madman’s profile far too perfectly. No, once any heir was born, Aizen would keep Karin around to rape at his leisure. Unohana would not wish such a fate on anyone. Unlike his other toys, she doubted he would toss Karin aside so easily. He might even divorce her and take Karin as his Consort instead. No one would, or could, argue if he did so. Once he had the Throne, he had the right to choose his ‘official’ Consort. Karin was far weaker than she was and the boost in power the human woman would receive would be no threat to Aizen, unlike herself. That was why he hadn’t named anyone when he’d slaughtered the Throne’s previous occupant.

The more Unohana thought about it, the more certain she became that her days as Aizen’s ‘wife’ would be over should Karin conceive. While that would be a mercy for her, it would also mean that her days were numbered. The only Espada who would have a chance at Claiming her would be Starrk and her husband, before he cast her off, would be certain to follow through with his threats against her Division’s officers if she tried to run.

“Good morning, my dear,” Aizen smiled at her as she entered the dining room, forcing her to put those terrible thoughts on the back burner in order to deal with the psychopath seated at the table.

“Good morning, Aizen-kami.”

She offered him a bow before joining him at the table and sitting down to eat breakfast. Gin, oddly enough, left, possibly to feed Karin.

She was surprised to note that there were four places set at the table instead of the usual two. Did Aizen plan to entertain Karin after all? Why leave her behind? Who would the fourth plate be for? He’d never permitted Gin to eat with them.

“I’d like the results of Karin’s exam.”

_Of course, first things first, after all._

“Healthy. She should be fertile in approximately four days,” Unohana replied, knowing better than to let him hear any reluctance or unhappiness in her tone of voice. “I will have the results of her blood work this afternoon, but I believe she is telling the truth and all tests will come back positive.”

“That’s fine. I believe her as well. Either way, I shall enjoy breaking her. On the other hand, perhaps _bending_ her would suffice. It would be a shame to fully shatter such a fiery spirit,” he mused, looking out the window for a moment with a faraway look in his eyes.

Watching him, Unohana felt her skin begin to crawl and her appetite die.

“Good morning Kami-sama,” a cheerful voice rang out, ending the current conversation.

She turned to look at the two children coming up to the table, one practically fluttering her wings in excitement, the other looking like he wanted to find a hole to hide in.

“Good morning children.”

Aizen smiled at Szayel’s progeny pleasantly and then fixed his attention on the pink-haired boy, his expression becoming stern.

“Abisara.”

“Good morning, Kami-sama,” Abisara murmured, taking his place at the table, but he hardly seemed interested in the fare presented to them.

“How did you sleep?” Aizen asked the children pleasantly.

“Awesomely! The bed was so big and comfy,” Vindula replied. “Can I pick out which flowers I want the gardener to let go to seed today? Pleeeeaaaasssse?” he begged him with big, watery eyes, in such a way as to melt even the stoniest heart. Suddenly, Unohana’s tea seemed incredibly bitter in her mouth, forcing her to swallow.

_Child, you cannot melt what he has never possessed._

“Of course. You may have free rein of the gardens in the Royal suites Vindula-chan. Just do not leave them without a proper escort,” he cautioned. “This is for your own safety.”

“Yes! Thank you Kami-sama. Um... I know we are here so that you can protect us, but can I see Ukitake-san tomorrow? I can press a set of the flowers and see if he would like some seeds in the fall as well, for the gardens at his Estate?”

“Jushiro is a busy man and has many duties, but I will see what I can do,”

The vague answer seemed to please Vindula and she sent Abisara a triumphant grin before devouring her breakfast without hesitation. Abisara still hadn’t touched the food, and was staring off to the side while wringing his fingers nervously. If anything, Aizen’s answer had further unnerved the boy.

“Is your meal not to your liking, Abisara-kun,” Aizen noted, a hint of warning in his voice.

Abisara shivered, and then reluctantly started to eat, picking at the food set out before them. Unohana sent her husband a disapproving look. She drew the line at attacking children. He gave her a measured look in return, but ceased tormenting Abisara for now. She would probably pay for it later, but it was worth it to see him back off.

Her own breakfast finished, she rose from her seat and bowed to her husband, explaining for the twin’s sake that she had patients to see today. Vindula waved goodbye and Abisara reluctantly muttered something similar after a pointed look from Aizen. She hoped the boy made it through the day without angering his captor. At least Aizen would be on his way to the First Division, which would give the boy a respite.

Kami only knew that she hated eating in Aizen’s presence as well.

Aizen watched his wife go before he went back to contemplating the children on the opposite side of the breakfast table. Abisara still picked at his food while Vindula had eaten her fill and began humming to herself, rubbing her fingertips together and daydreaming about the gardens.

She was such a pretty thing, a truly unique creature fit to live in his gardens as a kind of exotic pet. Perhaps he would keep her here to tend to them. From what he knew, she was a born gardener and Gin could always use more help keeping the landscaping attached to the Royal Suite in top shape. It would be a shame for something so pretty to go to waste. Perhaps he will even take her to the true Palace when he finally took the Throne back. There would be plenty of work there to keep her busy.

His eyes drifted to Abisara, Szayel’s son trying to remain beneath his notice. So much like his father, but lacking the years of knowledge, the maturity and the experience that Szayel had accumulated. The boy could easily replace his father in time, in many ways. As much as Aizen desired eventually make use of the boy, he had other, better plans for both children. Recalling his promise to Karin, Aizen knew that the keys to controlling her were sitting before him. In fact, the children would serve as the chains that would tie her to his bed.

It was so easy to manipulate women, he’d discovered. They’d do anything one asked, no matter how degrading or painful, if one threatened a child they held dear. It was almost a shame to have to resort to such a blatant tactic, as he’d been looking forward to seeing how long she could come up with ways of thwarting him.

It was a variation of the ‘allow me to do what I want with you or I’ll kill the children, or maybe hand them off to the Numeros’ ploy he used with Unohana, but she was too intelligent to fall for that. Killing them would displease far too many people, and he had no desire to put down an insurrection at present. After he took the Throne, he could remind certain people of his power and their place under him. He might even remove the more vocal ones from existence if they kept harping on their ‘rights.’ He’d already made it known, as of last night, that Szayel’s brats were under his care, so it would reflect badly upon him if he were to go back on his word this early in the game.

Besides, only a fool, or a bad player, used brute force this early in the game. What vexed him was that, given the circumstances, he simply didn’t have the time to wear her down in the manner that he wanted. Unfortunately, time wasn’t on his side, which meant he’d have to bring the two hybrid children into play far earlier than he would have liked.

“Abisara-kun, Vindula-chan, I would like to introduce you to your caretaker while you remain as my guests,” he smiled at them.

“You mean it won’t be Gin-san?” Vindula asked.

“Gin will see to most of your needs, but he has chores to attend to and cannot watch you at all times. I have someone else more fitting in mind. However, you can’t tell anyone about her or I will have to take her away and hide her elsewhere. Do you understand?”

Vindula pouted, but reluctantly agreed. Abisara only nodded when he looked the boy’s way.

“Very well. Why don’t you get a plate of food ready for her? She hasn’t had a chance to eat today and I am sure she will be thrilled to have you bring her something.”

Vindula took the suggestion to heart and quickly piled one of the almost empty platters with food, probably more than Karin could eat. Abisara accepted a tray with a teapot and a cup from one of the servants. With both children loaded down, he led them through the halls and back towards the Royal Suite. Vindula skipped happily while Abisara walked with a normal, if slightly hesitant, pace. He didn’t bother to knock on the door and entered, the children trailing in his wake.

Karin had her back to him, standing on the balcony and looking down at the garden. The stiffness of her posture let him know she knew he was there, had probably seen him coming long before he reached her door, but she didn’t bother to turn and face him. He wasn’t surprised to see her alarm system in place. The little minx had apparently been busy this morning, because he could tell she’d augmented it. He had to admit the braid Gin had chosen for her hairstyle was stunning, and he felt his shaft harden as he drank in the sight of her in clothing more befitting a woman.

The twins looked around the seemingly empty bedroom in confusion, but it didn’t take long for understanding to bloom on Abisara’s face, especially after he drew Kyoka Suigetsu. The boy was indeed sharp and Aizen guessed that Szayel had versed his son on all of the abilities of the Zanpakuto on file.

With a tweak to the spell, he allowed the twins to see Karin. She still didn’t turn around though, not even when Vindula called her name and ran up to her, food in hand. In fact, Karin didn’t turn to face them until he’d safely returned Kyoka Suigetsu to her sheath.

_A wise woman indeed,_ he thought with a small amount of admiration.

She was one of the few in the Seireitei proper who hadn’t seen his Zanpakuto’s Shikai. The rest were unremarkable, powerless civilians. He’d seen to it that every Arrancar had seen his blade, and he made a point to demonstrate its powers to the Academy recruits in the guise of a lesson on Zanjutsu. Thanks to her human status and her lack of a proper Zanpakuto, Karin had missed those classes.

_Ah well, it will make outwitting her all the sweeter._

Karin accepted Vindula’s hug, but her eyes remained on him, letting him see the hatred that seethed in them. He gave her a confident smile in return. Satisfaction filled him, as her expression grew darker when she realized his intent in bringing the twins to her. As promised, he would have her under him willingly in two days’ time. All mothers were alike, he’d found, and she was no exception; she would do anything to secure the twins’ safety. He let their presence speak for itself. The arm that wrapped around Vindula tightened briefly before she finally broke her gaze from his and turned her attention towards the happy girl presenting her breakfast to her.

“Thank you, Vindula-chan, I am hungry,” Karin replied and smiled weakly at the child. “Is that tea, Abisara-kun?”

“Hai,” the boy muttered, skirting around Aizen to make it over to Karin and set the tray down on the balcony table.

“I trust you will watch them for the day, and make certain they remain in the designated area?” he inquired.

Karin glanced at Abisara, and while she narrowed her eyes, her displeasure apparent, she gave him one cold nod of her head to indicate she understood.

“Very good. For today you have my permission to explore the gardens and the rest of the Royal Wing, save for my personal chambers. I believe Vindula-chan wanted to collect some flower samples to give to my gardener, and I am sure the twins would love to show you their room just down the hall.”

Karin was scrutinizing the children for any sign of mistreatment while trying not to let them on to what she was doing. She was also giving him the cold shoulder, but not to the point of being defiantly rude. He could feel himself getting stiffer already with her ‘hard to get’ attitude.

He also vowed to make sure Gin continued to braid her hair up like that.

“Have you two eaten?” she asked them.

“Yes,” Vindula dutifully told her.

“Abisara-kun?”

“Yes, Karin-san. We ate before coming here,” he clarified.

“Good,” Karin finally turned her attention back his way. “Will lunch be delivered to us or will we be summoned elsewhere?”

“You will have your lunch delivered,” Aizen promised. “I would appreciate it if you would join us for dinner this evening.”

“I see. Is there anything else?”

“Not for now. I trust you two will behave?” he asked the children.

When the children replied that they would, Vindula enthusiastically and Abisara mutely nodding, he gazed back at his real prey.

“Very well. Karin?”

He didn’t even need to utter his warning aloud. After a moment or two where she met his eyes evenly, she dropped them to a spot on the floor. If she knew what was good for her, she would say nothing to the twins about the events that happened up North. Vindula would remain blissfully ignorant and Abisara… well, he’d already cowed the boy by demonstrating how easily he could obliterate insects. He doubted the child would need a repeat lesson that involved his sister.

“Very good,” he declared and left the room. The match was now decidedly in his favour, but that was hardly a surprise to him. The question now was in how many moves could he entrap her? From what he’d seen of her this morning, he’d begun to regret his decision not to use force.

He poked his head into Unohana’s room, where Gin was busy washing the floors on his hands and knees with a damp rag. His position was fortuitous, as Aizen had need of him. Gin stopped scrubbing as soon as his shadow fell upon him, and his wife’s pet looked up at him apprehensively. The dread in his eyes grew when Gin noticed the slight bulge in his hakama.

“I have work to do, so make it quick,” he growled, dropping all niceties.

Gin wiped his damp and slightly dirty hands dry on his yukata before undoing the belt holding the hakama up and fishing out his better’s cock. Aizen couldn’t help but to let out a little sigh as Gin’s skilful mouth took him in and set to work relieving him of his sexual tension. It didn’t take long and he watched in satisfaction as Gin swallowed as he released in the man’s mouth. His lackey set about cleaning up the residue before tucking him and his clothing back into place.

“Anythin’ else, Kami-sama?” Gin asked, keeping his eyes on the floor.

“See to it that you feed Karin and the children their noon meal. You may eat with them as well. I would not want to upset the little dears.”

That took Gin by surprise, as he forgot himself and looked up at him. He almost never let the servant eat anything but his daily bowl of rice. Oh, he knew Unohana slipped him food at times, but he let it pass, for it amused him to see how something as simple as a contraband bite of fruit could so excite his former subordinate.

Aizen turned to leave before pausing by the door, a notion crossing his mind.

“Oh, and Gin?”

“Hai, Kami-sama?”

“Do have a talk with Abisara-kun about obedience. His attitude is beginning to irritate me, and I would hate to see bright little Vindula-chan pick up on it and imitate him,” he ordered.

He could almost feel Gin shiver behind him, but the man only bowed and said he would see to it and with that, he left the slave to his work. Everyone save the guards on duty bowed as he passed by on his way to the 1st Division, but he hardly noticed them. Gods did not acknowledge their inferiors and while Karin and her daughter had knocked him down a notch, the situation was temporary at best.

A large but neat stack of papers awaited him on his desk, as did a steaming cup of tea. He ignored the first for now and cradled the second as he considered his schedule for the day.

It would be too soon for Grimmjow and Szayel to try to move against him. The former lacked the ability to make a coherent plan and the latter lacked the proper resources. He would have to make a trip to the Science and Research building to make certain that no one would be able to enter the Soul Society via a Garganta. That would delay the Sexta from doing anything rash, though there were no guarantees, based on the Espada’s unpredictable nature. Still, he would sooner control how and when those two returned and he hoped that Grimmjow would come flying in response to Karin’s distress when he finally fucked the woman. Of course, Karin would probably do all she could to remain calm to keep from summoning her mate, knowing it would mean his death. He’d be entertained, either way.

Aizen briefly wondered if Grimmjow would pick up Szayel’s Claim when Karin’s ran out. It would be highly amusing to see Szayel as a brat younger than his own children again. However, it would trap one of his favourite toys in an unusable body. He had no interest in raping children. Training them for a future role yes, but actually engaging in sexual acts with them left him cold. If he planned to keep Szayel for an extended period, he would have to either find a way to fix the Arrancar’s broken mask, or get someone to keep him Claimed. Maybe he would make Karin do it, seeing as how she could do so by touch and he didn’t plan to share Szayel with anyone. It would be a fitting punishment for her, forcing her to keep Szayel in a state where he could rape him. Maybe he would take them both at the same time. They would do anything for the sake of the twins and his seed would go to waste inside of Szayel. Perhaps if he set Gin on Szayel while he took Karin…

Yes, he concluded, that might be a fitting way to punish the woman if she did anything he disliked.

He also considered Vindula’s plea to see Jushiro tomorrow. Starrk had been quite vocal about him ‘safeguarding’ the twins. Anger on the part of the male half of the First was quite rare and therefore, he had to consider the reaction for what it was: a warning. Unlike Grimmjow, Starrk’s transformation over the years had been subtler, masked by his laziness and frequent naps. He supposed he should have really spent more time watching Lilynette, as abrasive and obnoxious as the girl could be at times. She was the First’s emotional outlet after all. Only someone blind and deaf would have missed how angry the little female had been about leaving Hana behind and about his assignment of a sentence of treason for the Sixth and the Seventh.

He was somewhat surprised that the First showed such concern over Szayel’s offspring. Hana he understood, as the girl was the daughter of one of his pets, making her ‘pack,’ but as far as he could tell, the children hadn’t spent very much time around either Starrk or Lilynette, prior to the previous week. He doubted that even with Vindula’s considerable charm, the two could have wormed their way into Starrk’s good graces in such a short amount of time. Why the Espada felt he had any obligation to them, or to Szayel, stumped Aizen, but it was best to head off a problem by releasing the pressure on a valve, rather than leaving it unattended and allowing it to blow up.

_It would not hurt to let Vindula-chan spend a few hours with Jushiro at the Ukitake Estate,_ he decided.

That left the issue of Karin for him to consider. Being able to Claim another individual by touch was an intriguing ability, and if she were to gain the power of the Throne by being his Consort, it would be an interesting weapon, assuming he could get her to obey him and not attempt to use such power against him. The first thing he would have to do was to put a block on her reiatsu output, not seal it, as she would need her reiatsu to help protect her eggs from the overwhelming power of his reiatsu-infused semen. Her nearly untainted Royal blood would help in that regard.

He summoned a Hell butterfly. The little creature fluttered about him as he imparted a message to his wife to make sure to cleanse all traces of birth control from Karin’s body this evening when she got home. With it message imparted, the little insect fluttered away towards the 4th Division.

Another thought occurred to him, or more specifically, a memory that made him frown. He had asked Szayel about Hana’s blood once and the traitorous pink haired Arrancar had informed him that Hana’s blood was little different from Karin’s blood. At the time, he’d taken the statement differently, but considering yesterday’s development, Szayel’s assertion might also mean that Hana had Royal blood as well.

Aizen considered his options where the girl was concerned. Hana was weaker than even Karin, let alone Unohana. The difference in their power would make conceiving a child with the teenager impossible. She was also young. Had she another two or three years to her name, his attitude might have been different, but as it stood, she was a bit _too_ young for his tastes. Hauling a mere fifteen-year-old Shinigami back from wherever she was to decorate yet another guest bedroom would only set his soldiers on edge. Sometimes he found it amusing that even Hollows had some standards in that regard. Hana’s blood would be weak, diluted from generations of breeding away from the Royal line. In contrast, Karin was a direct descendent, her blood fresh and powerful. She’d be very fertile, if he recalled his notes on the various Royal bloodlines.

_It is not worth wasting the time and resources for such a weak connection, nor is it worth upsetting Harribel by taking her fraccion,_ he decided.

Now for the other complication involving his new toy. Finishing his cup of tea, he rose and exited his office. The Shinigami and few Arrancar working in the first Division bowed as he passed. It didn’t take him long to make it to Szayel’s old building.

“Ah, Kami-sama,” stammered the young boy covering the front desk, tumbling over himself as he rose to bow awkwardly. “H… h... how can I… I... assist you?”

“Rin was it?” he asked the boy with a disarming smile.

“H… h...Hai,” the boy attempted to salute, and smacked his hand on the table in the process. “Ow, ow, ow!” he muttered.

_Well, I suppose every village needs an idiot and with Abarai gone, someone had to take up the slack._

Rin had been uncoordinated on a good day, and his lack of motor skills hadn’t changed with the changing of the guard. In fact, the entire former 12th Division seemed to be far more active and lively than when Kurotsuchi had run it. Szayel was a bit of a micromanager, and since he had so few resources to work with in Hueco Mundo, he had a natural appreciation for competent assistants. Aizen supposed that he ought to be grateful that the scientists working for Szayel had proved just as useful under the Seventh as they had under the parolee from the Maggot’s Nest.

“I require the schematics for a registered device your former superior created and a sample of the tracking serum that I requested remain on hand. Fetch them for me. I also want a clean hypodermic and a tuner for the latter. You’ll find the plans under the label S48294.”

Rin nodded his head, clearly knowing what he wanted.

“Fetch them for me,” he ordered.

“Of course, Kami-sama, right away Kami-sama!” Rin bowed over and over, before bolting away to do as asked, slipping on the polished floor and bouncing off of the doorway in his haste to get his assigned task done.

Aizen waited in the lobby, watching with amusement as the researchers that worked here scurried as quickly as they could past him. Word had spread about Szayel’s traitorous actions and the entire Division was clearly on edge as they waited to see what would happen to them. He could imagine the worries running through their brains: would he would put them to death for Szayel’s actions, or replace Szayel with someone with a nastier disposition? For one brief moment, he considered giving the Division to Yammy, just for the sake of amusement, but doing so would be the equivalent of giving a piece of expensive crystal to a gorilla for safekeeping. This Division, much like the 4th Division, was a bit too valuable to hand over to a cretin like the Tenth. He would have to find a better manager for it.

One of the mousy-looking underlings laden with a stack of reports caught his eye as she attempted to scurry past him. The woman froze in place as his reiatsu brushed hers in summons. He thought it interesting that someone was able to walk while her knees were knocking together, but she dutifully came closer.

_I hope she proves reliable in carrying out a few basic tasks. I can’t imagine Szayel would keep someone completely useless on hand._

“I require Soul Society locked down to all Garganta travel. See that it is done,” he commanded. “You will be responsible for the system from this day forward. Please inform me of any attempts to break in via a Garganta of any size and try to track their point of origin.”

“Hai, Kami-sama,” she stammered, and quickly hurried away.

Perhaps he would order Barragan to let his pets keep an eye on things here. Of late, the former King of Hueco Mundo had been testing the bit and bridle that Aizen fixed in his mouth all those years ago. His treatment of Soi Fon, while not exactly disobeying the letter of his instructions regarding the Espada’s pets, was unacceptable. He wished he had been watching that situation a bit more closely, but all was fine now. From what he had learned from Soi Fon’s written explanation, Tesra would raise the child, preserving the cub as a specimen. Nnoitra’s fraccion was both loyal and trustworthy and had a child of his own on the way. Aizen wasn’t entirely surprised that Harribel had stepped forward to take up Soi Fon’s Claim, but the speed at which she’d done so suggested the feud he’d observed between the Second and the Third all those years ago hadn’t entirely died.

A quick glance at the clock told him that he had about five minutes before the pregnant woman was supposed to arrive, to receive the tracking shot that would leash her properly until she gave birth. While he would have liked to yank her around yesterday, forcing the once-proud and stiff woman to plead and beg, the presence of the twins had precluded any such taunting. She wasn’t the one whose skin he wanted to get under right now anyway.

Rin returned after about ten minutes, running full tilt and tripping at the last minute to skid across the floor and land in front of him. The tube with the rolled up plans he had asked for slid out of the young man’s hands to roll across the floor.

“Itai!” Rin hissed, before scrambling after the plans and finally presenting them to him with a bow. Rin also brought out a glass vial, a small device with a screen and a number of dials on one side and the needle he’d requested, placing them on the counter of the help desk.

“Thank you,” he smiled down at the boy, opening the tube and extracting the plans.

“O… of… course, Kami-sama!”

When Tsubokura Rin failed to move from his spot, Aizen temporarily set aside the diagrams and gave the Shinigami a cool look. Apparently, there was something else on the Shinigami’s mind.

“Um, Kami-sama?” Rin asked hesitantly, the very picture of worried supplication.

“Yes? What is it?”

“Abisara-kun and Vindula-chan...” Rin trailed off, looking down at his shuffling feet.

“…will not be punished for their parents’ treasonous actions,” he promised the young man. “I am keeping them safe at my Palace.”

The palpable expression of relief on the receptionist’s face said volumes. Kurotsuchi had certainly never inspired this kind of loyalty, but then, the old 12th Division wasn’t a place one would call particularly ‘child-friendly.’

“Okay then, thank you Kami-sama!”

Rin hustled back behind the desk, while Aizen waited for Soi Fon. He rolled the plans up and slid them back into the tube. While there was quite a lot of fun to be had baiting Karin and Abisara, he had duties he could not ignore. There would be plenty of time to needle both later in the evening. In fact, he had just the game to keep Karin up all night. Sleep deprivation, after all, did such curious and wonderful things to the mind and body.


	63. Esteemed Inmates

Karin watched Aizen leave before turning her attention back to the twins. Vindula seemed happy while Abisara looked as if he’d been placed, head-first, into a guillotine with the blade already digging into his neck. Karin eyed the food suspiciously, even though she was hungry. She wouldn’t put it past Aizen to hand the children poisoned food to knock her out, using them as a means to an end. Once unconscious, he would have no problems sealing her, and once sealed she was done.

“The food is safe, we all ate it earlier and Vindula-chan put the plate together from the leftovers herself. I don’t know about the tea though,” Abisara declared, as if reading her mind.

She gave him a weak smile, not expecting that the boy would so easily read her concerns regarding the possibility of drugging, though from his body language, he certainly wasn’t happy to be here.

“Of course the food is fine! Why wouldn’t it be?” Vindula asked her brother with a little frown on her pretty face.

“Aizen likes to pull pranks at times.” The lie slipped a little too easily off Karin’s tongue as she sat down to eat, but she still refused to touch the tea.

“Can we go to the gardens after you eat Karin-san, please?” Vindula begged. Her big, bright eyes spoke of a waning amount of patience, as did her squirming.

“Of course,” Karin agreed, and not just for the girl’s sake. She wanted to get a feel for her surroundings and see if there were any escape routes for the twins to take if the need arose.

She ate about a third of the food on the plate and then set it aside before leading her charges down the short stairs to the grass. Vindula was gone in a flutter of wings, darting towards the nearest batch of flowers and letting out a giggle as she gently caressed one.

“Abisara-kun, I need specimen envelopes!” His sister held her hand out expectantly.

“Where do you expect me to get some if we can’t leave?” Abisara asked with some frustration. “It’s not like I can wave my hand and make them appear out of thin air.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Vindula frowned, looking back at the flowers unhappily.

Karin walked up to the girl and rested a comforting hand on her shoulder. “It’s fine Vindula-chan. I’m certain that we can ask Gin to find some for you to use.”

“You think so?”

“Why don’t we ask him?”

At the suggestion, Vindula ran back up the short flight of stairs and called for them to hurry up and that they had to find Gin _right away_. Abisara shook his head and sighed, but followed in his sister’s wake. Karin took up the rear as they walked down the hall to Unohana’s room. Gin looked up from his place scrubbing the floor as they entered and offered them a faint smile, although Karin could tell it was forced.

“Ah, Vindula-chan, Abisara-kun, Karin-sama, wha c’n I do for ya?” he inquired, pausing and sitting back on his heels.

“Do you have anything I can use to collect flowers for pressing?” Vindula asked hopefully. “Kami-sama said I could take samples of the flowers I want seeds from in the fall!”

“There should be the impl’ments tha gardener uses ta gath’er tha seeds ev’ry year, out in tha shed,” he answered. “Ya can use ‘em.”

“Where is the shed?” she demanded. Her wings fluttered fast enough to blow the curtains that hung around Unohana’s bed. Mercifully, the slave had already thought to change the sheets.

“In tha back, out there, pas’ tha doors.” Gin gestured out of the double doors that led to Unohana’s private garden.

Vindula was quick to fly off towards the shed, buzzing in excitement. Karin let her go, but kept an eye on her. As much as she hated to admit it, no one would bother the child here in the middle of Aizen’s domain. Besides, it would give her a chance to talk to Abisara privately. Szayel’s son was not as naive as his sister and she could tell that the boy was both terrified of his situation here and desperate to know what had happened to his family.

“Abisara-kun, can I speak ta ya?” Gin asked. His voice was soft and he had a very unhappy, somewhat resigned expression on his face.

“Not much I can do to stop you,” Abisara murmured before Gin could say anything, guessing what the man wanted to tell him. The boy tried and failed to fight back tears before falling down to sit on the floor and hug his knees to his chest like the child he truly was.

“I am not stupid,” he sniffled. “I know how he looks at me, what he’s done to ‘Tou-san, even though he and Ji-ji tried to hide it from us.” Tears trickled down Abisara’s face and he viciously rubbed them away with back of his forearm. Karin kneeled down beside him and pulled the poor boy into a hug, letting him soak the front of her yukata as he sobbed. He was far too young to have to deal with shit like this, and she shot a hopeless look towards Gin.

Gin returned it and his sigh matched hers. There was little they could do for the boy save give him what support they could and distract Aizen from any interest he might have in the child.

“What happened up North?” Abisara suddenly pleaded. “Why did they leave us here?”

While both of the adults had agreed not to say a word to the twins, a shared look between them revealed the futility of doing so. Karin sighed and pulled Abisara into her lap. She didn’t tell him everything, only the basics as to why Renji and his parents had to flee and leave him and Vindula behind. At the very least, she tried to convince him that there had been no other options and that none of the adults in their lives had wanted to abandon them.

He shook in her arms and stiffened in horror when she confessed her lineage to him. He pulled away from her at that point, just enough so they could look eye to eye. His green eyes, far more expressive and open than his mother’s, stared at her in shock at her proclamation.

“O-tou-san knew?” he whispered. “But he took your blood lots of times. I saw him.”

“Yeah, he knew, Abisara-kun. He kept it a secret.”

“Then... there is no hope at all of Aizen-kami forgiving him, is there?” Abisara asked brokenly.

“No, I am afraid not.” Karin gave him a squeeze and pulled him back against her chest, rubbing his back soothingly in the same way she’d once done for Ajuga

“She’s dead,” he mumbled into the front of her yukata and sniffed.

His statement took Karin aback. As far as she knew, no one was dead, even if she wished certain people were and there were no women on that list.

“Who died?” she asked softly, sitting him back so that she could look at him.

“Mushi,” he hiccupped, shivering some more. “When Aizen came to collect me I was with her. I don’t know why, but she liked me, and it was relaxing being with her while you were all gone. She... she tried to protect me. Mushi tried to stop Aizen from taking me. He killed her, sliced her clean in half, and all I did was stand there and watch,” he all but sobbed the confession. “She’s dead because of _me_.”

Karin felt a flash of grief for the Scarab, for she had grown fond of Mushi, followed by a flare of rage at Aizen, but she put the grief and anger aside for the moment and let Abisara cry into her chest. He’d been holding this in for an entire day now, she realized as she smoothed back his hair and rocked him back and forth. Gin remained silent beside them, but his face softened a little as he took in the scope of the little boy’s distress.

“Shh, it’s okay Abisara-kun,” she crooned. “We can’t bring her back, and she died doing the right thing. I will do my best to make sure nothing happens to you two, but in order for me to do that, I need you to obey Aizen, even if you don’t want to, even though you are afraid. I need you to be strong, for both yours and Vindula-chan’s sake. Do you think you can do that for me?”

Abisara slowly nodded and wiped the rest of his tears away, scowling at the snot that clung to his clothing as he did so. He was a strong child, and smart. Karin knew he could get through this and if Aizen _did_ look at the children the wrong way, well, a glance at Gin suggested the man would help her get them out, even if it landed them both in Aizen’s playroom for the rest of their lives. She would sacrifice her own safety and surrender herself to Aizen’s amusement if she thought, for even a second, that the twins were in any real danger from anything other than Aizen’s petty mind games.

“Why don’t you go wash your face and then go help Vindula-chan pick her flowers? It will make her happy,” Karin suggested, rising to her feet and pulling him up with her.

Abisara disappeared through the door leading to the bathing chamber. He emerged shortly after, his face and his jacked clean and then made his way across the room and out the balcony doors to join his sister in the garden.

“Aizen won’t rape him, will he?” she asked Gin once the boy was gone, her voice croaking over the horrid question.

“Not ‘til he’s older at least.”

Gin sounded sure in his answer though his voice sounded dispirited. “Na ev’n Yammy’d stan’ for that,” he amended. “Ev’n tha worst o’ the Hollows have s’m sta’nards.”

She found a bit of relief at the understanding that they had some time yet before they had to worry about that particular fear. With the Throne gone and having been deliberately draining his powers in an attempt to get his seed to take inside Unohana’s body, Aizen was much weaker now, and he would not want to risk a confrontation with his Espada. Aizen was too intelligent not to realize that he was in danger of losing the loyalty of several of his followers and their fraccion, even as he’d secured the loyalty of the Numeros. He had led them to this ripe land and had given them access to the pets they now possessed. Thus, most of them, especially the males with pregnant females, credited their upcoming, highly sought after, and ‘legendary’ if one asked them about the subject, offspring to him. They would gladly go to war for Aizen and just as gladly take the place of any of the Espada.

“Do you need any help with the chores?”

“Na, an’ please d’nt do ‘em. Aizen’ll punish me if ya do.”

Karin didn’t like it, but she gave in, as Gin knew his boundaries far better than she did. She left the conversation there, letting Gin get back to his chores while she rejoined the children in the garden. Vindula and Abisara were pollinating and gathering several of the seeds from the flowers that had bloomed already. Content to watch, Karin found a spot in the shade and settled down on the grass. Despite the dire situation she found herself in, she couldn’t help but to smile as she watched Vindula take the lead and direct her brother. Normally Abisara found his sister exasperating, but not today. Today he let her direct him in the task they were doing.

At noon Gin brought them food, and even joined them sitting on the grass for a sort if picnic, much to Vindula’s delight. He returned to his chores shortly afterwards and Karin got the twins to show her their new room. It was next to Unohana’s and was built to be the royal couple’s nursery where as her room was probably originally designed to belong to the elder child, or second child she supposed as Aizen planned on murdering his firstborn.

Despite the lack of use since its construction, the nursery was well-stocked with all kinds of toys for an assortment of ages and the three spent most of the afternoon playing various games. Even Abisara put his ‘mature’ side away and didn’t resist as Vindula led them in game after game. It was getting later in the evening when Gin entered their room and ushered them all into the bathing chamber to get cleaned up for dinner.

Since he’d dragged the twins along, Karin thankfully didn’t have Gin trying to wash her. Instead, the man helped groom Abisara and Karin couldn’t help but wonder if the order to do so had come from Aizen. Gin treated the boy to the full procedure, including a pedicure, manicure and every other little treatment meant to bring out perfection. Karin wasn’t as experienced as Gin in each treatment, but she was unable to deny Vindula’s big soulful eyes. The bath turned into a mini spa treatment for the two as Gin directed her in how to go about performing each task, which turned out to be helpful. Vindula had dirt beneath her fingernails, but snatched her hands back when she tried to scrub beneath them. Instead, Vindula asked if she could do it herself, using the nail brush far more gingerly than usual for some reason.

Unohana joined them halfway through, the poor woman exhausted from her own day at work. Apparently, she’d seen every one of the pregnant Shinigami and Arrancar females. It was good to hear that Rangiku, Tatsuki and Soi Fon were all doing well.

They managed to get the children washed, dried and dressed in neat, expensive kimono with just enough time to get dressed themselves and everyone hustled down to the dining hall where Aizen awaited them. There were no servants in the room but the table was already set with dinner waiting for them, and Karin’s mouth watered, despite her reluctance to eat. Obviously, Aizen wanted her presence to remain a complete secret, even from the staff, and had the food delivered before having the servants removed.

“Forgive us in making you wait, Kami-sama,” Unohana bowed to her husband, the rest of them following suit.

“You are excused. I expected such a delay considering the addition _details_ that required been seen to.” He gestured towards the table, a soft smile on his face as his eyes roved over them all, seemingly satisfied with what he saw.

Karin and Unohana took the seats to either side of him, setting the twins further away. Vindula was excited to sit next to Unohana, and after thanking Aizen for letting her gather seeds, quickly regaled Unohana with praise of her garden while they tucked into dinner. Unohana seemed more than pleased to enjoy Vindula’s bright conversation.

“And how was your day, Abisara-kun?” Aizen asked the silent boy.

“It was fine. Vindula-chan, Karin-san and I played games and I helped Vindula-chan gather her seeds,” he answered, looking towards Aizen’s chest to let the man know he was paying attention.

The tyrant smiled again at the polite answer, before he looked at Karin expectantly. She silently applauded Abisara for giving her report.

“The twins were well behaved and lunch was satisfactory. We stayed in the Royal Suite and its gardens, as per your request.”

The human woman looked him dead in the eye as she did so, half to let him know she was telling the truth and half as a show of strength, to let him know he hadn’t intimidated her.

“Excellent,” he purred. She got the impression he wasn’t so much in favour of her reply as much as he was complimenting her on her steely resolve. “And how was your day, my darling wife? I trust the exams went well?” he asked.

“Yes. The Claimed females are as healthy as can be and there are no signs of abuse on them. Most of the respective Masters are quite excited about becoming fathers, with a few exceptions such as Nnoitra-san. As for the Arrancar females, they report an increase in appetite and moodiness, as expected of any pregnant woman. I asked that they bring in their male pets so that I could make sure they were equipped to handle their expectant mistresses. Other than a few mood swing-related bruises, which are not uncommon even in a pure Shinigami relationship based on love, the Arrancar females treat their respective male pets well and generally keep them informed as to what to expect in the coming months. Those Claimed males’ feelings are somewhat mixed on the subject.”

As loathsome as she found Aizen’s presence, Karin listened carefully, her curiosity piqued at the report.

“Most of the men are indifferent towards the situation, while a few are thrilled and some are terrified, not so much of their mistresses but of becoming fathers. It’s a common reaction for men who find themselves first-time fathers. As for the Claimed females, most are thrilled and excited at the prospect of having a child, as you know how rare they are even among Shinigami. Considering how well the hybrid children we already have turned out, there is only marginal concern in regards to ‘giving birth to monsters’ as opposed to any hysteria. We’ve eliminated most of the foreseeable unknowns already and thanks to the data we’ve collected over the last decade, we now know what to expect.

“Of course, some are afraid of being first-time mothers, the mysteries of labour, and of their Masters returning to a semi-abusive state after the child is born. I’m not gravely concerned about the last issue, for the three Arrancar fathers we have on record have shown dramatic shifts in their personalities and a clear desire to raise their children, and one of them had a well-documented record as far as his violent tendencies. Even Rangiku-san commented today that, despite his lack of interest in his upcoming children, Nnoitra-sama has scaled back his intake of alcohol and is ending ‘poker night’ sooner than he used to in order to make sure both women get their rest. I would not be surprised if he ends the weekly gathering altogether as Rangiku’s due date draws near.”

Unohana paused in her report, either to give Aizen time to digest it or because she was hesitant to bring up more detailed information in front of the children.

“I bet Abisara-kun could run the equipment to see the babies and all of those other tests until Papa gets back,” Vindula vouched happily into the short silence. “He helps all the time,” she added.

“I am sure he could,” Aizen smiled at the little girl, who beamed back at him. “How are the due dates looking?”

“Soi Fon-san is due in four weeks or so, but that is only an estimate, as the due dates do not really have an exact science behind them thanks to the uniqueness of the Arrancar bloodlines involved. Her child appears fully developed, so she could conceivably go into labour at any minute. As each hybrid child is different, and their mask fragments can cause possible complications, I have informed my Division to fetch me should any issues arise with any of the pregnant woman, as well as to get me for each labour. Do you wish me to direct them otherwise?” she asked, but Karin could tell it was only as a courtesy. Aizen could say what he wanted, but if there was an emergency, Unohana would be the one to handle it, and damn the consequences.

“Potentially annoying, but acceptable,” he said and waited for her to continue.

“After that, I believe Rangiku-san and Tatsuki-san are the next ones due, very close to each other actually, sometime around mid-May to early June.”

“When is Harribel due?” Aizen asked, frowning into his bowl of miso.

“Not for some time. As her base animal is a blue shark, I suspect her pregnancy will go a full nine months,” Unohana paused and sent Abisara a smile. “Actually, since her pregnancy is so unique, and no one knows the equipment here better than him, I would like for Abisara-kun to assist me with monitoring her pregnancy,” she requested.

Abisara looked up hopefully. He had been following all of the pregnancies alongside his father, thanks to the sensors he’d created and which Szayel had adapted for use with the ultrasound. His interests ran more towards machines and less towards biology, but it would get him out from under Aizen’s thumb for a while each day. Harribel’s case was also the most challenging and would require a great deal of oversight. Karin could see that the thought of continuing his father’s research for him while he was in exile excited the child.

“I will consider it,” Aizen offered, which meant his decision could go either way.

They finished dinner shortly after the conversation, Vindula trying, and failing, to hide a yawn as the long day caught up to her.

“If you will excuse us, Aizen-kami, I would like to get the twins to bed, considering they are under my care.” Karin said this and rose from the table as she did so, thus suggesting she was not asking his permission at all, but rather telling him what she was doing out of a sense of politeness. There was that gleam in his eye as she stared him down, daring him to stop her.

“Of course. I would be pleased if you would join my wife and me afterwards for tea in my chambers.”

It was a command veiled as a request and she thought about her response, and which way she should go with it. She was incredibly tempted to say ‘no’ and firmly tell him off but she also knew that it wouldn’t be wise to decline what many would consider a great honour.

“Then I will meet the two of you shortly,” she told him. Had it just been him, she would have refused, but Unohana‘s presence made it less personal. “Abisara-kun, Vindula-chan, come on,” she urged and gestured for them to lead the way back to their rooms.

Both children bowed and bade Aizen and Unohana ‘good night’ as Karin ushered them out of the dining room and back to the large bathroom to brush their teeth and wash their hands.

Abisara and Vindula changed into their respective sleeping yukata and Karin tucked them both into bed before turning the lanterns down low and retreating to her own room. She found some books on one of the shelves, but the subjects were dry and none of them appealed to her. She could see Unohana, Aizen and Gin in Unohana’s room and she pointedly looked away. With nothing to amuse herself with in her room, she stepped out onto the balcony instead to watch the sun set and the stars come out. Her alarm went off sometime later as Gin entered her room.

“Karin-sama?” he called, not seeing her right away in the dark room for she hadn’t bothered to turn the lanterns up as night fell.

“Over here, Gin,” she called.

He joined her on the balcony and she tried not to stare at the fresh bruise she could see forming on his collar bone.

“I am ta dress ya in som’ing more fittin,’” he declared. She snorted in response. ‘Fitting’ could mean any number of things.

“That depends on what it is.”

“Just a sleeping yukata,” he assured her.

That meant bedtime clothing. She could accept that. With a nod, she followed him back inside and stood still while he changed her kimono out for a yukata and then got her to sit so he could brush out and re-braid her hair. She found it oddly soothing as he ran the bristles of the brush over her scalp and his deft fingers wove the strands together once more. Her hair was wavy now since it had spent the day braided after being wet.

“Do you know what Aizen wants?” she asked, hoping to have some idea of the conversation before walking into a potential trap.

“’M‘fraid not.”

_Oh well,_ she decided _, it was worth a shot._ She’d find out soon enough what the bastard had in mind.

By the time Gin finished with her hair, Unohana and Aizen had retreated to Aizen’s personal chambers. She had no desire to see either of them, but when Gin stepped away from her, she forced herself to rise and walk to the hallway first, refusing to use the joint door that connected her room to Aizen’s. Gin didn’t join her and headed in a different direction to get the tea and refreshments. She knocked on the door and only entered after Aizen called that she could. She would not act familiar with him in any way, for it would only encourage him to hound her more.

Aizen’s quarters were astoundingly opulent, and she did her best not to look around her in awe. She instead joined Unohana and Aizen at the small table surrounded by sitting pillows. Both wore the same house yukata as she did, which didn’t put her at ease, but the fact that neither of them were naked made her feel better. Her eyes did go to the single glass of light blue liquid that sat next to his wife’s teacup.

“Please, drink this,” Unohana requested, passing the glass over.

“What is it?” Karin eyed it suspiciously, in the same way she would look at a questionable piece of beef at the market.

“It will increase your fertility and assist in the removal of any birth control hormones in your body,” Unohana answered in her usual, soft voice.

Karin frowned and still didn’t touch the glass, her eyes going to Aizen challengingly. He watched her intently, waiting to see what she would do.

“No offence, Unohana-san, but how do I know you are telling the truth, or at least, are not omitting anything?”

If the healer found the question disrespectful, the woman did not show it.

“Are you calling my wife a liar, Karin?” Aizen asked with just a hint of ire.

“We all know what you desire out of me and I wouldn’t put it past you to drug me to get what you want.”

Her retort, delivered with as much distrust as she felt, made the tyrant’s smile fade somewhat and she was glad to see some of his humour vanish too, since she didn’t find any of this remotely funny.

“I see… an understandable fear. However, I assure you that I never lie, nor would my wife out of professionalism. The drink contains exactly what she says: a compound that will promote ovulation and rid your body of any hormonal birth control you might be using. Normally, it would take a month for your body to rid itself of such, but this will shorten that timeframe substantially. You can drink it on your own, or I will have Gin force it down your throat. You could, of course, stop him by throwing a Claim up...” Aizen trailed off, leaving the rest unsaid.

Throwing a Claim up on Gin would prevent her from tossing one on Aizen that would be strong enough for her to use against him. He would be on her in a flash if that happened.

“Would it ease your fears if I drank some first?” Unohana interjected, trying to diffuse the situation before it could get out of hand.

“Not really. You could have consumed an antidote already,” Karin pointed out, glaring at the cup before her. “The only way I could trust you would be if you were Claimed and I specifically heard the order for you to tell the truth. I am sorry Aizen, but I refuse to drink this.”

She pushed the cup away with one finger. He frowned as she did so and Karin waited for the explosion to happen. Instead, he sat back and seemed to consider something before letting out a sigh. Then he shook his head, apparently putting whatever he’d come up with on some mental back burner in favour of a different tactic.

“Karin, you will drink this or I will have Gin wake up Abisara-kun and have him drink it for you to show you it is harmless.”

She glared at him, trying to gauge how seriously she should take the threat. If the mixture in the glass were harmless, it would cause no physical harm to the child. However, being dragged from his bed to drink an unknown potion that Karin refused to touch _would_ terrify the poor boy. The threat itself served to drive home the fact that Aizen could do anything to the twins and there was little she could do to stop him. He could even deny her the ability to see them and comfort them in this trying time.

_I promised Szayel I would take care of them,_ she reminded herself. “Just fertility boosters and hormone balancers?” she asked the woman at the table, looking her in the eye.

“Those are the only things in the mixture. I would drink it quickly, however.”

Unohana picked up the glass, taking a mouthful of it before handing it over. When nothing happened to the Shinigami, Karin reluctantly took the glass and finished it in a few gulps. The reason behind the warning was immediately clear and the young woman grimaced at the chalky texture and taste.

Gin arrived shortly after with a pot of tea and a tray of snacks. She waited to see both Aizen and Unohana drink the tea before daring to take a sip herself to wash down the aftertaste. In addition, she made sure to wait until they both chosen a bite from the tray before doing so herself. While Aizen could have had the drink and food poisoned while making his wife and himself consume any antidotes, she doubted he would go through that much effort so early in the game. She felt no different from the medicine and hoped that Unohana had been truthful about it. Karin had the feeling that the woman could tell the most outrageous lies and get away with it, thanks to that professional mask she perpetually wore.

“My wife assures me that your blood is indeed Royal, and strongly so.” Aizen commented.

Karin didn’t bother to respond, taking another bite of her red bean paste-filled mochi.

“Something Szayel said to me has come back to my mind, and perhaps you know the answer,” Aizen asked and leaned forward eagerly. “How much Royal Blood does Hana have in her veins?”

Karin felt her throat constrict around the candy at the question and had to force herself to swallow a mouthful of tea to wash it down. Setting her cup down, she looked directly at him.

“Almost none. She has so little that Szayel’s equipment barely registered it as anything more than a minor anomaly. It didn’t even give the equipment a hiccup,” she answered, slightly relieved she could do so truthfully. However, it wouldn’t do to give Aizen any bright ideas about sending out a ‘retrieval’ squad to hunt down Nanao’s daughter. Thus, she added, “My blood, on the other hand, continually blew up the testing equipment.”

Aizen laced his fingers together and leaned forward, resting his chin on his intertwined hands as he appeared to contemplate something.

“I thought as much. With such a weak connection, not to mention her strength, it is not worth wasting resources to bring her in,” he sighed, leaning back on his cushions. “If I can’t get my wife pregnant, there would be no chance with the late Kyoraku Shunsui’s child,” he chuckled, although he was the only one who found it amusing.

Both women let out breaths they hadn’t even realized they were holding.

“It has been a long day, and tomorrow is going to be longer still. Good night Karin, I look forward to sharing your bed,” he said and smiled benevolently at her.

She recognized a dismissal when she heard one, and this was one she wasn’t going to ignore, for to do so would imply she was interested in him. Rising, she bowed, more to Unohana than to her ‘husband’ and left, once more going through the hallway instead of the faster route through the connecting doors. Double checking her Kido net, she crawled into bed. She was just about asleep when the alarm triggered, jerking her back to wakefulness and she summoning a barrier around herself reflexively.

Her eyes shot towards the balcony, where she caught the tail end of a white yukata disappearing. Scowling in annoyance at the game, she settled back down to bed, although sleep was harder to come by, and it only got harder as the night wore on. Every time she was about to nod off, or had just fallen asleep the alarm triggered, jerking her awake. By the fifth time, she wanted to curse Aizen aloud for his tricks, but refused to indulge in something so childish.

The next day was a long one, as she had gotten no sleep for over thirty hours and Aizen seemed rather pleased with himself. It was very hard not to snap at Gin, especially when she saw the dark shadows under the slave’s eyes, indicating a lack of sleep on his part as well. Unlike her though, Gin had chores he had to do all day and would need what little energy his malnourished body could get. Vindula left with Aizen in the morning, presumably to visit Jushiro as Aizen had promised, while Abisara accompanied Unohana to work so they could talk about the pregnancies and the equipment his father had left behind. Karin tried to catch up on sleep, but every time she tried to nod off, the alarm triggered.

“GIN!” she raged in annoyance, nearly throwing her book at him.

“Sorry, Karin-sama.” His reply did sound contrite, and she forced herself to calm down before sighing, trying to keep the frustration out of her voice.

“He ordered you to do this, didn’t he?”

“Hai,” he admitted. “He’ll know if ya get some rest an’...” Gin trailed off, hanging his head.

“Let me guess, you’ve an order to slip a suppression device on me if you get the chance, right?”

Gin sighed and nodded his head, briefly showing her the silver bracelet he had tucked into his yukata’s sleeve.

“That son of a bitch,” she snapped as she glared at the item and then at him. “Go back to your chores, Gin. I will try and force myself to stay awake. I wouldn’t want him whipping your ass because you fail to get them done on time.”

He sent her a look of relief and left. Scowling, Karin tried to find something to entertain herself with to keep herself awake. She might be able to catch a catnap when the three where busy in Unohana’s chambers later that night.

“So he plans on wearing me down via sleep deprivation? I’ll give him that one. It’s clever and hardly harmful in the short term,” she said aloud.

Karin could retool the net to ignore Gin, but the moment she did that would be the moment Gin would have to seal her reiatsu, and she didn’t want to ask the man to ignore an order that would get him horribly raped and tortured should he agree to her request.

However, what she truly disliked was that somehow, Aizen had figured out a way to turn her own creation against her. She’d have to think of another way of keeping him at bay soon, before she was out of options altogether.


	64. Night of the Round Table

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter written by Black Fox

In theory, sequestering oneself with a beautiful woman one loved wholeheartedly, in the equivalent of a plush, Living World hotel room and doing all sorts of wonderfully erotic things to her and with her during the course of a few days ought to be easy. She’d kissed Renji awake a few hours after their mutual nap and they’d made some headway on acting out at least ten pages of the manga he’d inadvertently opened during lunch. Her pregnancy meant that he’d had to be creative with regard to a few of the pictured positions, but he was nothing if not resourceful and she’d cried out his name several times before he shuddered to an exquisite finish within her.

The light outside the window eventually waned and turned the walls a peachy orange before purple shadows began creeping towards the bed, but he stayed true to the concept of ‘denning’ and wouldn’t let her up until she was a disheveled, well-fucked mess beneath him. Renji’s legs felt watery when he went to pull on the borrowed, slightly-too-small yukata, in response to a hesitant knock on the bedroom door around the dinner hour. The servant had come back, this time with a neatly tied bundle of black cloth that turned out to be his mended and laundered uniform, as well as another heaping tray of food and tea. Riruka-san said little this time, save that her Mistress, Ishida Yuzu, would like to see the two of them at some point tomorrow.

He’d looked back at the woman on the bed, her turquoise-colored hair in disarray, sprawled among the white sheets with her eyes closed and toes curled and wondered if he could put off the request for another day without seeming like a complete ingrate. The redhead wanted to keep Nel to himself as he got to know her again and learned about all of the new and fascinating ways her body had changed since autumn. Things like how her breasts had become twice as sensitive as before and how lovely her skin felt as he rubbed oil covered hands over her belly, a suggestion that her physician and host had made to her to minimize the stretch marks later. He’d done that after they’d taken a second shower and eaten, which led to him declaring her ‘dessert’ and devouring her, beginning with nibbling on her ankles and ending with her thighs pressing against his ears as his fingers and tongue leisurely dipped into her in the same way he’d lick honey from the bowl of a spoon.

Nel whimpered when she came. He’d made a show of cleaning his fingers with his tongue and informed her he wanted a second serving of ‘sweets’, then helped himself to her again, until her hips began grinding against his busy mouth in an effort to find some relief. Renji drank her second orgasm down, the tip of his tongue teasing the muscles of her twitching opening while the pads of his fingers tormented her clit. Then his mate surprised him with a trick of her own, telling him in a ragged whisper that ‘if he got to have an after-supper treat, so did she.’ Her Claim on him coerced him to lie back against the headboard and watch helplessly as she crawled between his legs and treated his cock like one of the lollipops that Ukitake kept in his desk drawer.

After she’d reduced him to a boneless, moaning, shivering heap and swallowed every spurt, Renji decided that he’d never be able to look at another one of those candies again without wanting her on her knees in front of him. He might not even be able to look at Ukitake’s desk, for that matter. She’d turned off the lamp next to the bed after that and let sleep have at them. Her breath against his inked skin slowly helped tame his heartbeat, and they burrowed under the covers a second time, seeking each other’s warmth and rest.

When next he woke, the room was dark, save for six squares of silvery light on the floor. Outside, he could see the movement of tree branches in the wind. The room’s air was heavy with the scent of their joining and letting the breeze in couldn’t hurt. He eased himself out of the bed, walked naked to the window and cracked it open, taking a breath of apple blossom perfume as it wafted in from the orchard. Nel didn’t stir and her breathing remained deep and even.

Sleep for him, however, remained elusive. He’d grown accustomed to getting by on five hours of it a night and despite submitting to his mate’s Claim and several rounds of sex that should have drained him completely, his body hadn’t gotten the memo that he could afford to catch some extra slumber. Finally, he decided that, denning or no denning, he needed to at least take the tray and the dirty dishes downstairs. Leaving them in the hallway overnight seemed crass and he didn’t think the staff would be on duty this late, if the clock on the night table were accurate. Therefore, he fished around for the garment he’d worn briefly during dinner, pulled it on and piled the dishes onto the tray as quietly as he could.

It would be wonderful to pretend that there was nothing outside of the bedroom door, that the danger Aizen posed didn’t exist and that he could keep her there and pleasure her, and vice versa, for at least a week before they rejoined the rest of the motley crew downstairs. However, Riruka’s goodwill wasn’t something he wanted to test for much longer and he’d been a step-and-fetch-it lackey for too long to know not to expect another full day of room service without angering the maid.

Renji pulled the covers over Nel’s bare shoulders and pressed a kiss to her cheek before he left to try to find the kitchen. Traipsing barefoot through someone else’s very large house in the wee hours of the morning wasn’t ideal, but he could at least bring back a midnight snack for her, as well as some tea. He made it all the way down to the foyer before he found he faced the same choice he’d had earlier in the day. Sighing, he decided to go through the doors on the right.

That turned out to be the correct direction, if his interpretation of the function of the rooms on this side of the mansion was correct. All he had to go by was the furniture, but when he saw what appeared to be a nicely decorated dining room with a table meant to seat a large number of guests, he figured he was on the right track. Sliding through the room, he came to a second doorway, which led to what he would later learn was a ‘butler’s pantry,’ a space that resembled a hallway complete with counters, a cooktop, two sinks and cabinets full of expensive glassware.

It came complete with a butler as well.

For one brief, crazy instant, he thought he was looking at his Taichou, if Kuchiki Byakuya deigned to wear Western-style clothing and cut his hair. Renji stood transfixed as the man, in his early thirties, looked up from his book and regarded the Shinigami with surprise before his composure returned.

“Ah… I- I’m sorry. Please excuse me. I was looking for …” he started to say, before the tray of dirty dishes disappeared from his hands and reappeared on the counter. Renji hadn’t even seen the man put his book down. When he looked back at the butler, the other regarded him in much the same way that the maid had done in the hall upstairs, with an added amount of shrewdness and thankfully, less antagonism.

“I can see my wife was right. Am I addressing Abarai-san?”

“Yes?” Renji ventured, hoping he hadn’t managed to tick off yet another member of the Ishida household. The butler’s brown eyes slid to the tray and it was only then that Renji saw the faint scar above his left eyebrow, partly hidden by his bangs.

“Hm. A guest should not have to trouble him or herself with tasks such as this. Did no one show you the intercom system?”

There was an intercom system here? No, no one had informed him that there was such a system in the house. Renji’s confusion must have been apparent, because the man in the middle of the pantry sighed and launched into what sounded like a prepared speech.

“Between the hours of six in the morning and ten in the evening, if you need anything while in your room, you can press the button next to the speaker, just above your room’s main light switch and make your request to the staff member on duty. That includes the removal of any used dishes or laundry. Between the hours of ten in the evening and six in the morning, one of four rotating staff members will be on-call to assist you. I am the one taking tonight’s shift.”

Renji blinked at the man’s crisp, well-rehearsed delivery and tried to remember if there was such a device in Nel’s room. He’d had other things to think about, as well as taste and touch, from the moment he’d walked into the bedroom. When he got back, he’d have to check.

“That being said, our current roster of guests agreed to help with any outside chores for the duration of their stay. If you wish to make a similar arrangement with my employers, please let me know. We’ve been subject to some very damaging weather this past winter. Assistance would be appreciated,” the butler concluded.

He wasn’t certain if that was a request or not, so Renji settled on ‘strongly worded hint.’ Then again, he had no idea how long it would be before Szayel and Yoruichi came up with a plan that would hold water for retrieving Karin and the children.

“Uh… ah, okay…” he stammered, before he realized he had no idea to whom he was speaking. The dark-haired man bowed at the waist, the picture of gentility.

_Vindula would be all over this one,_ Renji decided, before he shoved the image away lest it trigger his unhappiness about leaving the children.

“My name is Tsukishima Shūkurō, major-domo of the Ishida Estate. You’ve already met my wife, Tsukishima Riruka.”

_Uh oh._

“Yeah, about that,” Renji said, making a face. “I’m really sorry that I…”

Tsukishima-san held up a hand.

“Apologies are unnecessary. Our Master informed us of the situation later in the day and that we were to give you and your fiancée some ‘space,’ for the time being. I believe that I speak for the rest of the staff when I say that we very much like Odelschwanck-san and we are pleased to make your acquaintance. She speaks quite well of you, on a daily basis and I will be frank, the separation has been hard on her. As long as she is happy you will have our support.”

_Meaning that if she isn’t, there will be hell to pay._

He heard the unspoken, roundabout warning and inclined his head to indicate he understood the message. For some reason, he got the same, unsettled feeling around the butler that he did about the magenta-haired domestic, that there was more to them than met the eye and that he’d best tread carefully in their presence. Then again, they had a Quincy as an employer and for all he knew, the two could have crosses and bows of their own up their respective sleeves. Renji didn’t fancy a backside full of arrows and didn’t want to provide them with an excuse to give him one.

“Would it be possible for me to take a tray up to her? A snack for her and maybe some tea?”

The butler finally favored him with a compassionate look.

“I have something I think will make Odelschwanck-san happy. The Mistress made them earlier in the day and given you and your companions’ sudden arrival she must have had a premonition, because she baked a double batch. Satisfying late night cravings is par for the course when caring for a pregnant woman. I have two sons of my own and I remain in one piece, so I speak from experience.”

It was an unexpected and somewhat candid revelation. When he reached for a teakettle to place on the cooktop built into the counter on the other side of the galley, Renji opened his mouth, only to find the same hand as before held up.

“Please leave the preparations to me. I’ll inform you when it’s ready.”

“Abarai, is that you?”

The voice, raised enough to penetrate the door on the opposite end of the pantry, startled him. The butler tucked a few strands of his black hair behind one ear and stepped aside to let Renji pass. The Shinigami put his hand on the knob and began to turn it, then hesitated and looked back at Tsukishima-san. After speaking with him, the differences were glaringly apparent, but the initial resemblance to his Taichou had been both uncanny and unnerving.

“Is there a problem, Abarai-san?”

“No, I’m sorry. You just… you look a great deal like someone I know.”

Tsukishima’s cool, deferential demeanour gave way to an enigmatic smile and he gave Renji a strange look from hooded eyes. The hand not holding the kettle moved to rest on the cover of the book he’d been reading.

“You would be surprised at how many times people tell me that.”

Getting the distinct impression that the butler had just dismissed him and feeling uneasy about remaining around the man in such a small space, Renji decided that the best thing he could do would be to let him go about his business. The redhead pivoted and quickly opened the door.

“Oh! Abarai-san!”

The maple, granite and stainless-steel kitchen, for that was where the door led, was a large, airy place, Western in every detail. It was spacious enough to accommodate at least three chefs, a few assistants and still had enough room left over for a generously sized circular table and chairs. Three of those chairs had occupants, and when he saw the women, he instinctively clutched at the front of his yukata to try to keep it closed.

“Renji!”

Rukia sat up straighter in her chair, her indigo eyes blinking as he stepped onto the cold tile. Yuzu paused in the middle of pouring tea into Rukia’s cup and Shihoin Yoruichi’s eyes flickered over him briefly, before she resumed staring absently out of the darkened window above the sink.

“Hi. I came down to get something to eat, actually.”

From the women’s mode of dress, house kimonos over pairs of pajamas and slippers, he surmised that he’d intruded upon some sort of late-night ‘girl’ talk.

“I see,” said Yuzu. She set the teapot down and began to move towards the butler’s pantry when Renji frantically waved the hand not holding his yukata closed to deter her.

“I already met Tsukishima-san. He’s making something for me to take back up to Nel. I wanted to ask, if it’s not too much trouble, if we could have tomorrow to just stay up there. I think the time will do us some good, all things considered.”

The blonde appeared taken aback by the request, but after a moment or two, sat down and smiled sympathetically.

“Of course! How silly of me. Take all the time you two need. I’ll let the staff know to bring you both your meals for the next day and you can join the rest of us when you’re ready. If anything serious happens, we’ll fetch you.”

Feeling a burst of gratitude towards the human woman, Renji faced Yoruichi and squared his shoulders. Wincing, he bowed as low as he could without the bottom half of the yukata giving way and revealing more of him than was either appropriate or wise, lest Yoruichi kick him there. He probably deserved it, for what he’d snarled at her.

“I deeply regret my words earlier today and…”

“Yesterday,” she interjected and he stopped.

“Huh?”

“I said, yesterday. It’s two-thirty in the morning. You called me a ‘lying bitch’ yesterday, not today,” she muttered and he wondered if kneeling while he apologized would have been better. His yukata might not stay closed if that was what she wanted, so he hoped not.

“Yeah… about that. I’m… well, there’s no excuse for what I said. I just had no idea…”

Renji heard her mirthless rasp of a laugh, interrupting him again. This time he looked up to find her pouring herself another cup of sake from the bottle in front of her. The faint flush of her cheeks and the amount of resignation he saw in her eyes as she studied the contents of the cup she swirled told him this wasn’t the first bottle she’d consumed this evening.

“Can it, Abarai. The good doctor took the time at lunch to call us all idiots, save for Yuzu-chan here, for not saying anything to you about it. We should have stopped you once we realized you’d gotten the wrong impression. _I_ should have known you’d do something hare-brained like running off to find her.”

He scowled at that, but before he could say or do anything in his defense, Yoruichi tossed back the sake and snorted, rubbing the bottom of her nose with one finger. Her golden eyes a bit brighter with the infusion of fresh alcohol.

“Besides, you didn’t call me anything I haven’t called myself at one point or another in the last fifteen years. Sit,” she told him, motioning him towards an empty chair. While he hadn’t planned to join them, he gingerly pulled out the seat and perched on the edge of it. Another draught of sake filled the cup and Yoruichi raised it in his direction.

“Congratulations, Abarai. I mean it. Maybe with you here, she won’t have such a difficult time in the next few months… and I’m sorry I wasn’t able to warn you about it. Something came up.”

“So Nel told me.”

Renji became aware of warmth rising directly in front of him and looked down to see that Yuzu had pushed a cup of tea in front of him. The lady of the house and Rukia also raised their teacups, though they seemed a bit wary of Yoruichi. Renji speculated on just how long she’d been drinking, and then remembered, from his time with Urahara, that her tolerance for alcohol was the stuff of legends. The four of them drank to the health of his future son. Thankfully, the tea was of good quality and went down smoothly.

“I’m sorry.”

He looked over to find Rukia hunched over her teacup, Yuzu’s hand on her slender shoulders.

“I’m so sorry Renji. I’m so, so sorry…”

“Rukia?”

“There was an altercation after lunch,” Yoruichi informed him, her tone matter-of-fact and poured herself yet another cup of sake from the bottle. She picked the bottle up, shook it and frowned at the lack of sloshing, indicating its emptiness. “Drat. I really hope Hiyori hurries up with that supply run.”

“What? There was _another_ fight?” he exclaimed, his eyes on Rukia’s miserable face. Yoruichi tossed her head, curled her lip and Renji thought that perhaps he hadn’t exactly interrupted any girl talk as much as he’d interrupted a brewing argument.

“Kuchiki-dono here decided to try a sneak attack on your ‘Master-in-name-only.’ Got in a couple of great shots before I pulled her off him. His mate just missed hitting her with whatever was in that syringe. Embedded it in the bannister instead.”

“That freak deserves to die for what he did to him!” Rukia shot back, glaring at Yoruichi in much the same way Renji had done in the orchard. He knew that look, had seen it a thousand times when she’d faced off against a larger, tougher opponent, whether it was an Inuzuri merchant, a Hollow or one of the bullies that made a habit of waiting for Ichigo on the other side of the teenager’s high school campus walls. In addition, her eyes were red-rimmed, as if she’d been crying earlier. Yoruichi answer was a stern glower aimed solely at the other noblewoman.

“We need that ‘freak’ alive, Kuchiki-dono! Put your anger aside for a few seconds and use your head!”

Renji watched as Rukia bared her teeth right back, with an expression that would have looked more at home on Kenpachi. It unnerved him, especially when he figured out what Yoruichi had referred to and why his childhood friend seemed about ready to tear Szayel apart.

Regrettably, Yoruichi was correct in that Szayelapporo Grantz was their best chance of getting rid of Aizen and of retrieving the twins and Karin unscathed. Before things could escalate, he quickly scooted his chair over a few spaces and placed his hand on Rukia’s forearm, squeezing it.

“Hey… Hey! Stop it, right now!”

She was clearly upset with the fact that Szayel was not only here, but that she couldn’t inflict the beating she wanted to bestow on the Espada. While Renji was flattered that she would go so far as to let her anger at the Arrancar prompt a couple of punches to Szayel’s face, their current reality dictated that he put an end to any further retaliation.

“Renji, what he did to you, it’s inexcusable! I’ll never forgive him!” she seethed.

“I haven’t forgiven him entirely either, but this isn’t the way to handle it!”

He hoped the severity with which he said this was enough to convince her to leave well enough alone. The fight between Grimmjow and Ichigo had been bad enough, but he hadn’t thought about the potential for other resentments that might come to a full boil after simmering for so long. Renji took a deep breath and faced her head on, the way he would if he were dealing with one of the twins after a long day.

“Rukia, you’re tired. Go find your husband and get some rest. We’ll talk later, when Nel and I finish this ‘denning’ business. No killing Szayel and no turning Sode no Shirayuki on him, okay? I promised the kids I’d bring their father back to them alive and I won’t have you making a liar of me.”

Rukia stared at him, as if he had started speaking in some strange foreign tongue, before lowering her eyes and finishing off the last of her tea. He hadn’t had a chance to speak with her in his rush to find Nel, and he wanted to tell her so many things. However, he had to get her to see he was serious about her abandoning any ideas of making an ice cube of the Seventh. She didn’t look at him as she pushed away from the table, stood up and bowed to Yuzu.

“Thanks for the tea, Yuzu-chan,” she said, her voice subdued. “I’ll catch a cat-nap, since I have sentry duty in the morning.”

“Hiyori’s due back soon,” Yoruichi mentioned and her eyes narrowed as she regarded the empty sake bottle. “No freezing her until I pull the booze out of the truck.”

“I won’t, no matter how irritating she is.”

With that, Rukia left the kitchen, pushing open a different door and letting it shut behind her. Renji watched her departure with a sinking heart, knowing he’d somehow hurt her with his request for her to back off and to leave Szayel be. He also wondered how many others had made death threats against the Espada now that he was, technically, on enemy territory. If Rukia was this upset and Grimmjow ready to lynch him for Karin ordering Szayel to leave her behind and drugging him…

Then he remembered that there was another individual here who would have more than enough motivation to put a few arrows in Szayel’s back. He left off worrying about Rukia and instead opened his mouth to ask Yuzu if her husband had any plans to obliterate the Arrancar. Yuzu smiled half-heartedly, as if anticipating his next question and took a sip of tea.

“Your mate told us what really happened to Uryuu-kun, before Ryuuken’s foray into Los Noches. While Grantz-san might have unintentionally contributed to Uryuu-kun’s death, he also killed the one who murdered him. It doesn’t entirely erase his culpability, but my husband isn’t going to pursue a course of revenge against the Espada, or against his mate. Kurotsuchi Mayuri was the one responsible for the deaths of my husband’s son, as well as Uryuu’s grandfather, and no other. While he’s not happy about the presence of two high powered Hollows roaming the property, it’s preferable when one thinks about the alternatives.”

_That’s very… pragmatic of him,_ Renji considered and scrubbed his face with one hand. That the Quincy would show such restraint relieved him. _I’m not certain Szayel would do the same if the shoe were on the other foot. Wait, no… I’ve seen the footage. He didn’t spare Kurotsuchi at all._

It also heartened him to know that Uryuu’s father had drawn a line between Nel and her fellow Espada. Yuzu had said ‘two’ after all and he didn’t think it was necessarily because his mate was naturally born as opposed to ‘evolved’.

“So, where is ‘here,’ if I’m allowed to ask?”

Yuzu and Yoruichi shared a glance before the blond answered.

“You’re at the Ishida Estate, and in the heart of the last Quincy fortress in the Living World. The current building dates to the early twentieth century, well before the war. The Ishida family has had a presence in this region for millennia. Before they built the mansion, there were other structures, even a castle during the Warring States Period. It was one of the few buildings in the area to survive the fire bombings during the war, and the orchard and the gardens helped feed the residents of Karakura in the hard times afterwards. Those who built it made it nearly impregnable against a Shinigami incursion and Hachi-san has done his best to add an additional layer of obfuscation to the property since he arrived. This place is, for all intents and purposes, invisible,” she explained. “I’m certain that you noticed that you can touch and interact with things here without the benefit of a gigai, correct?”

Renji glanced down at the cup he held and tapped it with a finger. Thinking back, he also realized that he’d had to pull the front door open to enter the house, and that all of the material things in Nel’s room were tangible, in the same way they would have been if he was standing the middle of the Soul Society.

“Yeah… I don’t get it. Why is that?”

Yoruichi favored him with a grin that held little humor as she picked up the sake bottle and swung it back and forth, the neck held between two of her fingers.

“Energy is matter and matter is energy when it comes to the Quincies, but normally, it’s hard to transition one to the other in the Living World without heat or cold, unless you’re in a spot like this. Once you cross into a Quincy stronghold, it’s really all the same thing. Go outside of the boundaries however, and you’ll need a gigai to interact with anything, same as any other Shinigami. If you do leave this Estate, which I don’t recommend,” Yoruichi warned him, her golden eyes narrowing, “you’ll feel the difference once you’re past Hachi’s shields and the Estate’s protective barriers.”

“How protected can this place be when we got in with a Garganta?” he pointed out. The noble’s grin widened, showing some teeth this time.

“I gave Nemu-chan the coordinates. I also gave her the passkey for Hachi’s shields once I figured out that Karin was going to stay behind to destroy Szayel’s device. Without it, we’d have been dumped off-property and I _hate_ having to wait for people to open doors for me.”

“Oh,” was all Renji could say, until his eyes fell on the door to the butler’s pantry.

“About your staff… are they Quincies too?”

Yuzu followed where his gaze had gone and shook her head.

“No. They’re… well, my husband hired both of them after everyone in Karakura… after the worst happened. Neither of them were in the city at the time and they came back to find their friends and family gone. He gave each of them a job and they married a few years later. That was before I married Ryuuken of course,” she amended hastily. “They live in the majordomo’s quarters just past the pond. I’m certain that you’ll run into their boys, Ginjou-kun and Moe-kun, while you’re here. Both of them are aware of my husband’s status, and his ancestry, and they’re very loyal to him for helping them.”

The redhead gave the kitchen a thoughtful once-over. Somehow, when he’d read about the Quincy-Shinigami Wars, the image he’d developed of a typical Quincy ‘fortress’ didn’t include maple cabinetry and wainscoting. Then again, he’d never expected to meet a live one in the form of Ishida Uryuu either, and considering how the previous day had unfolded, he wouldn’t be shocked to see a unicorn walk through the back door.

Yoruichi’s sake-roughened voice drew him out of his musing and he saw her put the bottle down on the table with a decisive ‘thump.’

“Well, Yuzu-chan, I have some planning to do before I leave for the Seireitei and a lot of work ahead of me. I have to figure out how to take the latest wrench out of the works and throw the gears into fast forward, now that the timetable’s changed. Think you can keep my little band of troublemakers from killing the pink nerd before I get back?”

Yuzu sighed deeply.

“If I have to, I’ll resort to using the whisk.”

The noblewoman winced and clucked her tongue.

“Ye-gads. Kami help them if you bring out the cast iron,” she said dryly and stood up. Renji saw the pupils of her eyes waver in size, and he revised his opinion on how drunk she actually was, from ‘possibly’ to ‘definitely.’ Then she leaned across the table to peer closely at him, letting him smell exactly how much rice wine she’d put away.

“You look as if you’ve been shagged absolutely rotten, Abarai. Good show! Poor Nel’s been pining for you and for whatever it was you did to her when you last met in October. I wouldn’t keep her waiting much longer if I were you. Oh, and now that Szayel knows about the baby, he’s hot to trot about getting a chance to run new ultrasounds on your mate. That pink barnacle all but clung to Ishida-san’s leg, begging him, and I quote, ‘scientist-to-physician,’ if he could examine our dear Nel. I think Ryuuken shook the leech off and told him he was asking the wrong person. Fair warning, I’d plan on a visit from him tomorrow. Make him grovel a bit before you say ‘yes,’ ne?”

She winked at him before he could get over his shock at her brazen words. An equally scandalized sound crawled out of Yuzu’s mouth, before Yoruichi made her exit, strolling out of the same door Rukia had taken earlier, with an airy wave.

“Hey, now wait a minute!” he called after her, but she was gone before he could finish the sentence and a quiet tenor, coming from the direction of the pantry, made him turn in his chair and push his hair out of his eyes. The butler was back, a covered tray in his hands, complete with an expectant expression.

“I’ve your tea, sir, and something for Odelschwanck-san. Would you like me to bring it up?”

“Uhm,” was as far as he got before he noticed he was out of the chair, his feet were moving and that he wasn’t the one in charge of where they were going. His body, not quite under his control, made a beeline for the pantry, as it was the only route he’d taken to get here and therefore, the only one he knew when it came to returning to Nel’s ‘den’. Yuzu gasped as he threw her an ‘I’m really sorry about this’ look over his shoulder, spat a hank of hair out of his mouth and made a grab for the tray as he dashed past the startled servant. Tsukishima-san deftly stepped to the side as Renji managed to get both hands on the platter and keep it balanced.

“NoneedIhavetobegoingnowIappreciatethis…” he rattled out, before Nel’s Claim forcibly dragged him through the house, back the way he’d come, tea and midnight snacks in hand. Blessedly, he encountered no one else on the way upstairs, as he might not have had the dexterity to avoid a collision. Renji reached the door to Nel’s room and thanked the stars that he’d learned to open doors one-handed while carrying large baskets of laundry, boxes of equipment, pails of cleaning supplies and other unwieldy things. Otherwise, there was a good chance the Claim would have propelled him _through_ the door in a literal fashion.

Nel sat up in bed, her expression angry and her eyes accusing as he closed the door with his foot. The lamplight in the room cast ominous shadows across her mask, making her platinum eyes gleam beneath her bangs.

“You left.”

_Crap. Busted._

“I went to get us something. No one told me about the intercom.”

“You left, Renji.”

Warning bells went off in the masculine, reptilian part of his brain responsible for self-preservation and he quickly set the tray down on top of the bureau.

“I didn’t want you to get hungry.”

All of this was true, but she was still glaring at him, clutching at the sheets that bunched around her hips and heavy belly and Renji suddenly understood the terror he’d seen on the faces of a few of the male Shinigami who’d found themselves attached to a pregnant Arrancar.

“Why do you have Rukia’s scent on your hand?”

Renji could only hope that whatever it was that Tsukishima had packed for him would be enough to mollify an expectant mate who had woken up alone in their bed.

“I brought you this,” he said with a hint of desperation as he pulled the cover from the tray and cringed, holding it out to her in the hopes she wouldn’t inflict any damage on him.

“Oh! Yuzu-chan made cookies!”

The abrupt change in her voice nearly gave him whiplash as she appeared next to him and made a pleased sound as two of the cookies on the plate next to the teapot disappeared. Renji opened one eye to discover that she’d closed hers while blissfully chewing, a smear of chocolate at the side of her mouth… and just like that, her dark mood evaporated.

He silently thanked Tsukishima-san for his insight, and for, quite possibly, saving his life. Renji considered that his son had inherited his sweet tooth, as well as his childhood appetite, from the way his mate eyed the plate. Letting her in on the brief conversation he’d had with the three women in the kitchen as he poured two cups of tea, he reached out and tucked a messy strand of her hair behind her ear, before resting his hand on her shoulder.

“I bought us another day to den up. Since Nemu-chan was always hungry, especially in her last few months, I thought you might be too and I didn’t think you wanted to wake up to dirty dishes. Szayel usually brought her late-night food personally, so…”

“I love chocolate!” Nel exclaimed, once she’d finished swallowing the second cookie. “Yuzu-chan is _such_ a good cook and it’s so much better than eating the things we did at the safe-houses. Cup ramen and tinned, convenience store sandwiches aren’t really my favorites.”

Renji had a different opinion of street food, but he agreed with her on its scant nutritional value. Another wave of gratitude washed over him for the fact Nel was here, in the most secure place in Japan, instead of hiding in a run-down warehouse or a deserted apartment building. He handed her one of the cups and she sipped at it, the scent of the tea rising with the steam to mingle with the sweet smell of the cookies on the tray. On impulse, he leaned down when she lowered the cup and his tongue swiped the corner of her mouth, lapping up the chocolate there, taking her by surprise.

“Nel, I wanted to ask if you’d consider something.”

“Consider what?”

“When I talked to Ishida-san today, he said he’d never run across something like this. I know that you don’t like Szayel very much…” Renji began and sighed, knowing that she might take what he was about to propose the wrong way. “As much as I despise some of the things he’s done, I’ve never seen him be anything but cordial to those who were carrying hybrid children.”

His mate’s mood sobered, though she didn’t look angry with him any longer. Maybe there was something in the cookies other than chocolate, or perhaps chocolate itself served as some sort of magical placating substance, because she looked down at the cup in her hands and correctly guessed what he wanted.

“He wants to get his hands on me, on _us_.”

Renji quickly pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her protectively.

“Yoruichi gave me a heads-up downstairs. We can expect him to try to ask you tomorrow, if he screws up enough courage. Your doctor left it up to you. I will also say, in his defence, that Szayel probably knows more about hybrid pregnancies than Ishida-san does and as much as I respect Uryuu’s father…”

“…you’d rather have someone with some experience take a look at me. You know what Szayel’s like, Renji.”

“I know that I won’t let him be in the same room alone with you and I’m certain Ishida-san will want to ‘observe’ him too. Neither he nor I will allow any funny business when it comes to you or our son,” he vowed. “I trust Szayel to at least deal with us fairly, if only out of scientific curiosity. Will you allow it?”

Nel leaned against him and he threaded his fingers through her long hair, gently working the tangles from it. As much as he would have liked to tell Szayel to go hang himself with his sash, all he knew of his future child was that they were having a boy. He hadn’t even seen the sonograms and at the very least, Szayel would know if there was something amiss once he ran the necessary tests.

“I’m more concerned with your health, Nel. Every hybrid pregnancy is different. The twins came out fine and nothing went wrong when Orihime-chan gave birth to her son, but Karin told me there were complications with Ajuga, thanks to her mask. It’s just to make certain things go smoothly, considering what we’re up against.”

His fingers gently reached down and brought her chin up, letting her see his earnestness.

“If he tries anything,” Renji declared confidently, “I’ll feed him to Zabimaru. What the baboon doesn’t digest, the snake will finish off.”

That earned him a faint smile and when he dangled another cookie in front of her, she snatched it and chewed it while he finished off the rest of his tea and licked a few crumbs from her bottom lip when she’d finished it.

“I’ll go if you’re there at all times. No leaving!” she snapped. Her Claim tightened a bit, but now that the chocolate had done its work, there was no urgency to it. Renji chose to take it as a reminder that she didn’t like waking up alone.

“No leaving,” he promised. “To prove it, I think I’m going to make certain that you won’t have to do without skin-to-skin contact for the next day.”

The wolfish grin he gave her added a lovely blush to her cheeks, and in the semi-darkness, made the maple-seed mark over her nose nearly disappear as the two shades of pink approached one another in hue. If a portion of the lust that suddenly seized him got through to her, so much the better.

“You went downstairs like that?”

Nel finally took in his appearance, his messy loose hair and the yukata stretched a bit too tightly across his shoulders and frowned. The redhead laughed softly as he reached up to run his thumb across her cheek. There was no going back to bed now, with two cups of caffeine in his system and a beautiful woman this close to him, as naked as the day she was born.

“Yup.”

“What will the others think?”

“That I belong to you and that you’ve repeatedly had me all evening. Yoruichi gave me some good advice though. Once you’ve eaten, I intend to follow it. We don’t have to go anywhere for another whole day and night, if you don’t want to. Szayel can wait until we’re done.”

_And I know just how to spend that time,_ he inwardly grinned, while she made short work of the rest of the tray’s contents. When the plate was empty, Renji kissed her again, catching her off-guard. The combination of tea, chocolate and the grassy-clover, lemony perfume that clung to her hair had its usual effect on him and he unleashed a full rush of both desire and love in her direction.

“I… I really liked page eighty-eight,” she murmured weakly against his mouth as Renji pulled her back towards the bed. It took a moment for him to remember the page, but he felt his own cheeks flare when it and the position, came back to him.

_Oh, yes, that one. I think we can revisit that page at least once more before morning,_ he decided as he untied his yukata. It fell to the floor and he promptly forgot about it in favour of pushing her thighs apart and making her moan.

The world could stay on the other side of the door for now. Renji would deal with Rukia’s dark mood, Szayel’s scientific wheedling and the rest of it later.

They’d been given a reprieve of twenty-four hours and he wasn’t about to waste another second of it.


	65. Dissatisfaction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> People plot and finally meet after far too long.

Starrk lay under the branches of one of his trees, but for once he couldn’t sleep and found himself staring up at the new leaves rustling overhead instead. Lilynette sat still beside him, her arms wrapped around her knees. She wasn’t her usual, hyperactive and cajoling self, ready to kick him into wakefulness. If anything, he would call her ‘sombre’ today. He sympathized with her pensive mood, as it mirrored his perfectly.

_Well,_ he considered, _maybe not perfectly._

For his part, he was sitting on a great deal of carefully banked anger and the embers showed no sign of flickering out. For once, it burned hotter than what he was certain crackled within Lilynette.

They’d had a family here, a life and a chance to interact with others who weren’t petrified of being around them. They’d managed to _build_ something important, something they’d craved for a very long time. Now the only ones left were Jushiro, Nanao and Soi Fon, the last of whom would be moving over to Harribel’s place soon. In fact, the hour of her departure loomed and by sundown, she’d be gone. Nanao was helping her get the few possessions she had acquired in the last few weeks together. With Aizen’s direct order for the woman to be Claimed after giving birth, and considering that birth could happen at any minute, they all thought it would be safer to transfer Soi Fon to her new mistress sooner than later.

It didn’t help that depression and self-recrimination coloured the anger he felt towards the one who had gutted his extended pack.

_Sorry Shunsui. I said I’d keep your family safe, and here I’ve lost your daughter again,_ he moped and berated himself, though the coyote figured he could take some solace in the fact that he wasn’t the only one who had grown disenchanted with their increasingly abusive ruler.

He had been surprised when Ulquiorra had approached him at the Victory banquet. He knew that Karin’s little coalition had considered talking to the Aspect of Death by Apathy, but he hadn’t realized that Grimmjow had managed to make such a convincing case to the other Espada prior to going on the lam. Even though Aizen hadn’t directly declared Diaemus a traitor, should the boy not return as he had the last time, their leader might choose to implicate the winged hybrid as well. Ulquiorra was not an idiot and the male half of the First thought that this incident might be the proverbial straw that broke the bat’s unwavering loyalty.

“Starrk?”

“Hmm?”

He turned his head to look at his gloomy partner.

“I hate this,” she pouted.

“Hmm,” he agreed, shifting his body in order to get more comfortable.

“What are we going to do about it?”

“I don’t know yet,” he confided.

A hopeful eye looked his way. He had said ‘yet,’ implying he was thinking about doing something. He didn’t like the fact that one of the first things that Aizen had done upon their return was to take Abisara and Vindula from him. He’d arrived an unheard-of hour early for the ‘party’ with his pack in tow to confront their leader about his high-handedness. Of course, Aizen had anticipated his reaction and had pointed out that the twins would be safer with him when he’d brought up the children’s whereabouts.

There was also a good chance the traitor would come for his children and when Aizen had out and out told him he intended to use the children as ‘bait’ to lure Szayel back to the Soul Society, there was little he could say without revealing his own growing dislike of the current regime. Aizen’s reasons were all sound, logically presented and he couldn’t argue with them without a plan of his own in place. Aizen even said he might let him have the children back once he’d dealt with the traitors. He’d all but publicly promised as much in front of the other Arrancar, Espada and Numeros alike, later during the party, minus the twins since they hadn’t arrived at that point. Aizen had allowed him to have them for the evening, probably as a concession and a show of ‘good faith.’

A few years ago, he might have been content with that, but now he found himself distinctly unsatisfied. Aizen had overstepped far too many boundaries of late, from assaulting others’ Claimed pets and breaking his own and their laws in the process, to threatening a child if what he’d seen of Abisara that evening was any indication of what the child thought of his change in caregivers. The cub had been too quiet, too subdued and stank of fear. He didn’t know if Ulquiorra knew about the last time Aizen had raped Szayel, but he wouldn’t put it past the Fourth not to have noticed something was up. From the brief, guarded conversation he’d had with the other Espada, someone or something had shifted Ulquiorra’s worldview as far as ‘Kami’ went and not for the better.

If he hadn’t heard the faint footfalls on the grass, he would have felt the disquiet that was Ukitake Jushiro over the last few days approaching anyhow.

“Hiya ‘shiro-chan,” Lilynette morosely greeted Jushiro as the man joined them.

“Starrk, Lilynette,” the one-eyed Taichou replied, bowing.

“It’s Lilynette-sama to you, ‘shiro-chan,” the girl shot back, but her reminder lacked its normal snark.

“Of course, my apologies, Lilynette-sama,” Jushiro offered her a weak smile, but it died quickly.

Starrk hadn’t expected the atmosphere to get brighter, based on what he could feel of Jushiro’s emotions, but there was an edge of concern that he ought to address and now was a good time. Maybe it was because he’d had to return Vindula to Aizen this afternoon. He’d felt the hot knife that was Jushiro’s pain as he’d relinquished the little winged girl to Gin on the night of their return, though he suspected it was more than that.

“What brings you out here?” Starrk asked.

“I think Gin may have been trying to tell me something during the party,” Jushiro confessed. “It slipped my mind until I saw the Abisara-kun returning to the Palace with Unohana-san when I dropped Vindula-chan off and I wasn’t certain of what he meant at the time.”

Jushiro wasn’t the sort to make things up or indulge in wishful thinking. Starrk gave his friend his attention, motioning lazily for him to sit down beside himself and Lilynette on the lawn. He might dismiss it as such, if Jushiro hadn’t mentioned Gin. Coyote Starrk had spent a long time observing each of the traitorous Shinigami in the time they’d operated in Hueco Mundo. Gin was a crafty, clever man, and if Aizen’s slave thought it worth the risk to try to get them a message, then Starrk wanted to hear about it.

Vindula’s visit today had been a pleasant surprise, but Starrk recognized Aizen’s patronization and placation when it showed up on his doorstep. At least the little girl had been cheerful and happy, showing no signs of abuse at all. In fact, she was all too willing to let them know how awesome it was to stay at the Palace and how amazing the gardens were. As much as they wanted to question her about Karin, they also didn’t want to pressure her into saying anything that could get her into trouble. If Aizen wanted to hide Karin, he would have taken the precaution of making the children take a vow of silence about her. Vindula was also far too honest for her own good and they couldn’t risk having her reveal that Starrk’s pack had questioned her, particularly about Grimmjow’s mate.

_I’m not suited for all of this cloak and dagger nonsense,_ Starrk inwardly groused. _It’s exhausting._

“What kind of clue?” Lilynette inquired and Jushiro put his hands in his lap, lacing his fingers together.

“Well, when Gin came to gather Vindula-chan during the party, I asked him if she was going to be safe. He said, and I quote, ‘her yes, _others_ not so much.’ He made sure to stress the word ‘others.’”

Starrk decided that remaining horizontal was a waste of time and sat up to mull over Jushiro’s revelation and what Gin might have meant by it. His pack already knew that Aizen had confiscated Abisara and Vindula. If they had been the only two captives, Gin would have used the boy’s name in the sentence and dispensed with being vague.

“He also had a full plate of food. We all know Aizen starves him, and _we_ made certain both of the twins ate that night. I saw him serve Unohana earlier and she’s not the sort of woman that puts away more food than necessary. The plate had to be for someone else.”

_Well, damn. Seems Gin’s not even trying for subtle. He used to dance rings around the rest of us with his words. For him, that’s the equivalent of waving a burning torch and blowing a horn._

“It had to be someone not at the party, but important enough for Aizen to get his pet to personally serve,” Starrk agreed, finishing Jushiro’s thought aloud. “If we needed any further proof that he’s holding someone at the Palace, we have it now.”

“Who do you think it is?” Lilynette asked anxiously.

“Karin,” Starrk and Jushiro answered in unison.

“Why her?” Lilynette looked back and forth between the two men. Starrk went from rubbing his forehead to rubbing his eyes, wondering how much he ought to tell her. As much as he cared for the other part of himself, she had the unfortunate habit of speaking without thinking and that trait could get the entire household killed, or worse.

“He declared the others traitors and said that Diaemus had followed them through the portal, Lilynette. He would have no reason or interest in holding Hana, as she has no value to him. So that leaves only one person and Karin…”

Jushiro trailed off and Starrk picked up the slack, the grudging acknowledgement that their fears had been correct apparent in his tone.

“Is Grimmjow’s mate and Szayel’s mistress. Hurting her would hurt Grimmjow thanks to the Claim.”

“You think he is torturing her?” his smaller half gasped, her pink eye getting bigger and her fists clenching. He turned his head and wished he had something better to tell her, something that wouldn’t result in another round of profanity.

“It’s a possibility,” Starrk reluctantly confessed. “There’d be no reason to keep anyone else hidden.”

Lilynette scrambled to her feet, teeth bared. She looked how he felt right now and the alarm on Jushiro’s face as she did so served as enough of a warning.

“We have to do something,” she proclaimed, before Starrk’s hand reached out and grabbed her by her forearm, to forestall the girl from throwing herself into a fight she couldn’t possibly win.

“We will,” he told her, before his eyes narrowed. “But not this minute. We’re in the same boat as two days ago. We’ve got no proof and we can’t sense her, which tells me Aizen is cloaking her presence with his Zanpakuto. We can’t rescue what we can’t see.”

Lilynette fell back to the ground, as frustrated as he was with the problem, before she blinked and looked harder at him.

“You just said ‘we will’ Starrk. Does that mean you’re ready to do something _now_?”

Starrk wanted to lie back down and groan. Aizen was a tricky bastard and overthrowing him would be very difficult. In effect, he was in the midst of a card game that included their leader, as well as players both friend and foe. Each of the players held different cards. He knew what he could do with his current hand, but as always, the issue wasn’t in the cards he held, but in the ones that he didn’t hold. The odds that the cards would fall just right, that they’d have enough players on their side to remove Aizen from power weren’t good. There were too many unknowns and all the while, their overlord played his hand as he pleased.

_Then again,_ he thought unhappily, _if I don’t play anything at all, we lose everything anyway._

“Humph. I see the lot of you have put things together for yourself. That will make this meeting easier than I expected.”

A new voice chose that moment to join in the conversation and three pairs of surprised eyes darted over to see a slim, black feline sitting innocently amid the yellow daffodils in Jushiro’s recently weeded garden. For all intents and purposes, the cat wasn’t ‘there’ and it barely had any reiatsu, but that didn’t stop the shock that slammed into him through Jushiro’s Claim, nor the sense of recognition that followed it.

“Shihoin Yoruichi!” Jushiro gasped.

The cat cocked its head to the side.

“The same. So Aizen is holding Karin at the Palace, eh? We figured as much, although hiding her presence with his Zanpakuto may make things a bit more difficult as far as getting her out of there,” she commented, trotting up to join them and making herself comfortable next to Jushiro, as if she was entitled to that patch of grass. Lilynette gaped as much at the animal’s audacity as its ability to talk, while Starrk regarded her in the same manner an old dog would regard a target he knew was too fast to catch, and so discarded the idea entirely.

There was also no need to catch her, if what she went on to say had any merit.

“Grimmjow was pretty pissed Karin made Szayel drug him and drag him through the gate,” Yoruichi informed them, and chuckled. “And here I thought _Ichigo_ had a temper. You should have seen them! I nearly had to beat the two of them senseless to get them to calm down long enough to listen to reason and not run off to do something stupid.”

_That does sound like something the Sixth would do,_ Starrk admitted and from there on out, he decided that he could trust the woman-in-cat’s-clothing to tell him the truth as far as she knew it. Listening wouldn’t hurt, though he had to put a hand on Lilynette’s shoulder to keep her seated and a stern look to keep her quiet long enough to gather the information he needed.

“I presume this isn’t a social call,” Starrk drawled, slouching forward with his legs crossed and his elbows resting on his knees, the picture of indolence on a warm day. His eyes however held the cat’s without wavering.

“No, it isn’t. I come bearing a proposal, if you’ll hear it out, _Primera_.”

“I’ve no cause to stop you. Let’s hear it.”

He considered it fortuitous that the ‘traitors’ were with the Escapees… mostly. The outcome for the merger between them would hinge on Kurosaki Ichigo and Grimmjow forgoing killing one another for Karin’s sake. Both men were pigheaded and temperamental, prone to acting without thinking in much the same way as Lilynette. While the panther had calmed down over the years, Starrk hoped the same was true of the brat he’d once seen, the one who had rampaged into Las Noches with the barest of plans to rescue a friend. He would consider the last fifteen years as time well spent if the boy, now a man in his early thirties if he reckoned correctly, had done some maturing of his own.

“How are the kids?” Jushiro asked worriedly and Yoruichi yawned, showing a hint of fang and pink tongue, before twitching her whiskers.

“Ajuga-chan is understandably upset and rather confused right now. No one told her of her family’s connection to the Spirit King, let alone what she could expect if or when she took the Throne. I swear Grimmjow nearly throttled Diaemus-kun when he found out Ajuga accidentally chose him to be her Consort.” Yoruichi laughed and her tail swished across the grass at the memory. “The boy does a beautiful imitation of a deer caught in a truck’s headlights.”

Lilynette almost choked to death when she heard that, and even he raised one dark eyebrow at the news, leaning forwards despite himself.

_Diaemus and Ajuga? Kami preserve us._

“Spirit King? Are you kidding? Starrk! You didn’t say anything about _that_ , you good-for-nothing…”

Starrk pondered, while Lilynette hopped up and kicked him in the shins for withholding information from her and calling him all kinds of filthy names, if the universe could handle such an arrangement, or whether it would shiver itself to death on principle, if one considered how much damage the two had been responsible for when they were younger. When he decided he’d let Lilynette vent enough, The Espada caught her ankle and forced her to sit, sparing his shins.

“This is why I didn’t tell you. Keep your mouth shut about that, Lilynette, do you understand?”

She ‘hmphed’ and glowered at him, but nodded, letting him resume thinking in peace.

There was also the Fourth to consider. He didn’t think Ulquiorra would be too thrilled to find out about Ajuga and Diaemus’ new relationship. True to her nature, Lilynette abandoned her sulking and sent him a scheming look, one that just begged him to let her be the one to tell the bat his son had mated with Grimmjow’s daughter. Moreover, it would seem _Ajuga_ had been the one to ‘Claim’ him. That would certainly sting a father’s pride.

As stunning as that was, he had yet to hear anything about his pack’s other cub. He ignored the Diaemus/Ajuga drama for the moment and asked, “What about Hana-chan?”

“Oh she’s fine. She regrets she had to leave without saying anything. She apparently knew about the Royal Lineage thing the whole time and was going insane trying to keep Ajuga out of the Swarm’s way.”

The cat licked her paw and cleaned one ear with it, before continuing.

“Personally, I think she finds much of what happened somewhat amusing, other than the fact that Aizen now has Karin in his grasp of course. You have no idea how long it took us to convince Ichigo and Grimmjow that what Karin had done, as painful as it was, was the right decision, even if it was the best of a number of bad options. With her as bait, Aizen won’t be so intent on taking the Throne back from Ajuga and Diaemus until after he has an Heir. I must say, Hana inherited Shunsui’s somewhat twisted sense of humour as well as his pragmatic outlook.”

Yoruichi chuckled before turning serious once more.

“Right now, Hachi and I are trying to help them figure out their abilities as the new Royal pair and to get the Realms rebalanced, or nothing we do will mean anything. I showed Szayel, once everyone stopped making death threats against him, to one of Kisuke’s old labs and gave him all the notes my friend had on that stupid jewel living in Aizen’s chest. I have been assured he is trustworthy for as long as Karin’s Claim holds on him.”

The cat looked at them for confirmation, and those yellow orbs constricted slightly. While in Hueco Mundo, Starrk wouldn’t have spared the energy to laugh uproariously at the use of the words ‘trustworthy’ and ‘Szayel’ in the same sentence. The idea would have been absurd. That was long before he’d seen the abused and nearly broken creature he and Renji had hauled out of Aizen’s playroom that one morning. If one tossed the threat to his children on the tall heap of things Szayel had against their ruler, Starrk knew the Seventh would do anything to assist the rebellion. He and Lilynette told her as much, which made the cat happy from the way her whiskers moved. Starrk thought it strange that she hadn’t ascertained _their_ willingness to help overthrow Aizen, but then, he had no idea how long she’d been listening in to them.

“Szayel is looking for a way around the immortality annoyance, since Ajuga was so kind as to deal with the problem of the Throne’s powers, which is one more item we can check off _our_ list,” Yoruichi continued. “I am here to see what resources we have on _this_ side of the Dangai. As you’ve probably suspected, I’ve been working with Karin for some time now, passing on reports to her regarding the sorry state of the Living Word, among other things, and she’s seen fit to supply me with necessary information, on occasion.”

“So she is technically a traitor,” Starrk sighed, looking right back at her, “though no one would blame her, considering the stakes.”

“That depends on one’s definition of ‘traitor.’ I made contact with her in order to remind her that as a member of the late Spirit King’s family, she has obligations to something greater than her pack, her family or her friends. Is it ‘traitorous’ to continue to turn a blind eye to the growing imbalance in the universe, when one can fix it, despite the dangers?”

This time the furry black rebel hunkered down and stared at him, as if to dare him to defend any of Aizen’s transgressions. When he said nothing, and when Lilynette hugged her knees a bit closer to her chest, the cat relaxed and regarded each half of the First in turn before speaking.

“So, am I to understand you grow weary of the bastard who calls himself a ‘god’ and who acts like one of Hell’s own? Better yet,” she said, truly getting down to business, “which one of you wants to help with the planning?”

If it was one thing he hated, it was a rhetorical question. He ran his hand through his hair, removed a stray blade of grass and regarded it carefully, twirling it back and forth between his finger and thumb.

“Aizen needs to kill Diaemus to retake the Throne?” Starrk asked, hoping to get some clarification before he said ‘yea’ or ‘nay.’ “What’s that about?”

“Indeed,” Yoruichi she stated, sounding quite certain about her answer. “As Ajuga’s chosen Consort, he and his blood relations are now considered Royals as well.”

_Well, that’s an interesting development,_ the rumpled Arrancar realized. He tossed the bit of green back down to the lawn and then inquired, “Does that include his parents?”

“I believe it does.”

“Then you will have Ulquiorra,” Starrk responded. “He will stop at nothing to prevent harm from coming to either his mate or his son. The threat of Aizen forcing himself on Orihime will bring him to your side, if nothing else. Harribel would also be amenable, if my conversations with her over the last two weeks are indicative of her concerns about ‘Kami,’ which means you will have her mate and her fraccion as well. I believe you would also have her because you have Hana’s well-being in mind.”

If a cat could smirk, Starrk swore the animal before him would have an ear-to-ear grin.

“Oh, we’re not worried about the Third, and from what you’ve said, the recent wrinkle in Karin’s plans hasn’t affected her willingness to help us, even if it’s by doing nothing.”

_Typical cat. She’s just full of surprises._

That explained some of the more veiled comments Harribel had made when he’d strolled over to her and her women at the celebration, under the guise of speaking to her about Hana. If he could get Ulquiorra to see the danger to his family, and if Harribel was willing to come down from her fence, the conspirators’ chances just got better.

“And what of you, Primera, and those whose Claims _you_ hold?”

He could feel Jushiro’s brown eyes on him, as well as Lilynette’s cross glare and considered himself out of time to find a way out of this mess that wouldn’t involve some honest exertion.

“You have us,” he announced and had to throw up some mental walls, lest the relief and eagerness from his two companions overwhelm him. “Barragan certainly won’t intervene on Aizen’s behalf. He wants to see Aizen dead. If we’re lucky, the skeleton will choose to run back to his former kingdom, in Hueco Mundo, but if not, he may try to take over the Seireitei itself.”

“That would just be replacing one tyrant with another,” Lilynette snorted, closing her eye and shuddering. “It would be like it was on the sands, before Aizen took our power and let us walk among others, only… only this time he’d use _Respira_ on Starrk and I, to clear a path.”

His other half made a good point, one he felt that Yoruichi should take into account. The Second wasn’t one to take the front lines. Instead, he’d let the rebels take care of Aizen for him before he swooped in to snatch the spoils.

“Indeed, Barragan will make us his first target, should he decide he likes it better here.” Starrk made a face before continuing. “Nnoitra will fight for the sake of fighting and could care less who sits on the Throne. However, your real problem lies with the loyal Numeros, with their pets and with Yammy. If Aizen promises them a promotion to the rank of Espada, they will gladly obey him, especially if it means they’ll replace us.”

“A large-scale battle with Aizen will also create a massive number of casualties,” Jushiro pointed out softly. “The entire city will likely be destroyed during such a conflict. That is far too many souls to risk.”

Yoruichi hunkered down and tucked her front paws beneath her, before she addressed Jushiro’s consideration, trying to lay one fear to rest.

“Ushōda Hachigen is working on that. He is developing a barrier that will serve to hold back Aizen’s power. He’s been working on this project for a very long time now, and as he’s the only true Kido grand master we have, it’s the reason this has taken so long. We’ve also been trying to interpret what’s left of Kisuke’s notes to try and find a way to deal with the Hogyoku, but I’m afraid that he took much of what he knew to the grave. We hope that Szayel will have more luck. His brain and Kisuke’s seem to run along similar lines.”

The cat’s voice became pained when she mentioned her late compatriot, before she shook herself and tried to remain in the present. “However, we _are_ lucky in that Hana-chan seems to be as good of a Kido expert as her mother. In the last two days, she’s helped him make some serious headway. The young lady is quite the mathematician. I’ve never met someone who can rattle off complex equations in their head with such accuracy. Hachi’s beside himself and I haven’t seen him this happy in such a long time. He’s treating her as he would a star pupil and with her help, we should have a way to protect the Seireitei from Aizen’s powers very soon.

“There’s also a problem with logistics, or rather, transportation. I’m adept at getting back and forth between this Realm and the Living World, and I can take someone else with me with some effort, but we’ve no way of slipping _everyone_ back into the city unnoticed. What is the status of the old 12th Division? How loyal are those data jockeys to Szayel?”

Starrk hadn’t any idea how to answer this, and Lilynette’s shrug was answer enough for her. Jushiro, however, coughed discreetly into his fist and gave the Shihoin heir what sounded to Starrk like a reasonable reply.

“He’s treated them better than Kurotsuchi ever did, if the stories Karin brought home over the years are true. In addition, Karin made Szayel obey Unohana’s rules regarding patient and staff safety, as well as the ethics outline on allowable experimentation, which means far fewer casualties than the old days. There’s still a great deal of regard for Nemu-chan and most of them adore the twins. I would feel confident in saying that the majority of them would agree to help.”

The feline’s eyes lit up at that.

“So we’ll have free access to a Senkaimon again?”

“Yes, provided Aizen hasn’t taken over that Division yet,” Starrk answered, adding the warning before she could get her hopes up. “If I paid them a visit and asked one of the underlings to open several gates and erase the records, they would do so without question. They might even do it with pleasure. You’d be able to come and go, but I can’t guarantee that Aizen won’t give the Division to another Espada.”

Yoruichi sighed in pleasure, even with the unknowns attached to his offer.

“See if you can do that, Starrk-san. Aizen can’t watch Szayel’s pack of geeks _all_ of the time.”

“We will still need a way to distract the rest, to keep them from realizing Aizen is under assault and coming to his aid. It’s a pity the Swarm was defeated. A battle would be the best time to launch an attack against Aizen,” Jushiro lamented. Yoruichi yawned again, and looked at her former fellow Taichou knowingly, as if she’d already spent copious amounts of time on that problem.

“I have been in contact with several of my old allies here. With a little wrangling, I’m certain we can get them to create any number of flashy diversions. Some of them are former Shinigami and a few of them are strong enough to take on an Arrancar, but not for long. We could try to get the Rukongai folk to revolt, but it seems as if the Arrancar and Aizen have left the majority of them alone, so they have no real reason to rock the boat. With so many Arrancar here, Hollow attacks on the outer Districts are almost non-existent now. The Rukongai has never been so quiet, other than the Swarm attacks of course, but the bugs don’t make it past the lines into the city.”

Yoruichi shook her head at the irony of the situation.

“How many Shinigami survived the fall and are hiding out there?”

Jushiro’s question brought a frown to the cat’s face, despite the lack of eyebrows.

“Truthfully, I don’t have an exact number. I have some names, provided by a very helpful observer over the last five years, but I haven’t tried to find those with whom I’m not familiar, or for which I couldn’t get a decent description. I could find out using a few of my better-connected contacts and they’ve had some luck gathering the survivors who managed to stay beneath the Arrancar’s notice, but I do not have time to hunt them all down. Nor will I introduce you to all of them in the hopes that you’ll pick up the task. Coordinating them would take a great deal of time,” she hissed in annoyance, “and it’s time I’m afraid we just don’t have.”

Starrk understood the dilemma. Most would be scattered, more concerned with hiding and avoiding being Claimed than forming a resistance movement and after fifteen years, shaping them into anything resembling a real army would be nearly impossible. Still, if the goal was to create disturbances, rather than act as cohesive units, getting the ones she could find to help would be a good thing. He opened his mouth to tell her to give it a try anyway when a well-aimed rock interrupted their conversation.

The unexpected missile bounced off Yoruichi’s flank, causing the cat to jump and twist in the air with a yowl of pain and surprise. Lilynette scrambled into a crouch as the cat went airborne and Starrk’s head whipped around to look towards the assailant, who had a myriad of warring emotions flickering in her eyes.

“Yoruichi-san?”

This came from Nanao as she stood beside Soi Fon, the two women focused on their feline guest.

Yoruichi didn’t answer. Her yellow eyes had gone big as moons as she took in Soi Fon, or more accurately, her very large and obviously pregnant stomach. Starrk felt a moment of annoyance at having failed to notice his fraccion and his houseguest enter the garden. If the two had been anyone else, the four of them could have been in serious trouble.

_Damn. Getting a little too comfy around here for my own good._

He blamed it on the fact the two Shinigami resided on the Estate with him. He perceived neither as a threat, so he had automatically ‘ignored’ their presence. Judging by the sheepish cringe in both Jushiro’s feelings and Lilynette’s posture, his companions were just as embarrassed and disappointed in themselves as he was. Should Aizen learn of their planned mutiny, well, what he would do to them would probably make what he’d done to Szayel and Gin look like a game of hopscotch.

He did note that the cat was the one to break eye contact first and hang her head guiltily.

“She is safe,” Starrk said to her, trying to reassure their only link to the Escapees. “After the way Barragan has treated Ggio, you have no fear that the fraccion will order her to do anything unless Barragan forces him to do it. Even that’s iffy, since his Claim has nearly worn away to nothing. Harribel planned on taking her in and picking up her Claim, after she gives birth.”

Yoruichi’s ears perked right up, looking at her old student with fresh hope in her golden eyes. The cat’s expression seemed to soothe some of Soi Fon’s anger, because the woman was intelligent and understood that, even if it was painful, approaching Barragan’s den was a suicidal venture on the best of days. Starrk’s experience with Barragan as a ruler had thankfully been limited, but the Aspect of Death by Old Age had a tendency to force his followers to act out all sorts of unpleasant scenarios for his amusement. If Barragan had captured Yoruichi while lurking around his den, he might have used Ggio’s Claim to compel Soi Fon herself to kill her former superior, which would have served to break the woman utterly.

Yoruichi moved cautiously over towards the silent woman. At first, it seemed like Soi Fon was going to give her the cold shoulder, but in the next moment, the woman fell to her knees and pulled the cat tight against her, tears freely running down her face as she hugged her former teacher and friend to her chest. Yoruichi returned the affection by rubbing her cheek against Soi Fon’s face.

“I wish I could have come for you. I am so sorry,” Yoruichi whispered into Soi Fon’s ear. “It hurt so much to leave you behind, and even more to see the way that monster treated you. I am not even going to ask for your forgiveness. I do not deserve it.”

Soi Fon nodded her head in agreement at the first part of Yoruichi‘s speech, and held the feline closer for the second. After a minute, she set the feline back down on the grass before her and wiped her face. If cats could cry, Yoruichi would probably be doing the same.

“Can you move freely?” Yoruichi asked intently.

Soi Fon did not reach for the chalkboard as he expected her to do, but rather did something with her hands, the gestures sure and sharp.

“I see. So it is still unsafe to take you with me and I missed that window by only a day!” Yoruichi hissed in annoyance. “Damn it all to Hell!”

The kneeling woman moved her hands, twitching her fingers in careful sequence. Starrk realized the gestures were some sort of sign language, or a code once used by the disbanded Onmitsukido perhaps. Yoruichi clearly understood it, so Starrk surmised that it was probably the latter.

“Perfect,” the cat exclaimed, reacting to whatever Soi Fon had ‘told’ her with the kitty equivalent of a devious smile. “Soi Fon will know the majority of my remaining contacts. In fact, many were once her subordinates. She can communicate and co-ordinate with them on this side while I get back to Earth and assist Ajuga and Diaemus on stabilizing the Realms. This isn’t something I can delay either. You have no idea how close to disaster we really are. I will tell Soi Fon what she needs to know, who to look for, and then return in three days. By then, I hope Szayel’s research and the work on Hachi’s shield will have borne fruit,” Yoruichi promised. “Are there any messages you wish for me to take back?” she asked.

“Just let Szayel and Nemu-chan know their children are safe, that we saw both of them today and they are completely fine for now,” Jushiro replied. “Do you have any messages for us, or maybe, just some news?”

“Well, the only tidbit I can think of, other than letting you know that Grimmjow and Ichigo haven’t killed one another yet, is that Renji and Nel are expecting a child.”

For one solitary instant, no one moved or spoke. Yoruichi’s statement was so utterly out of place and strange that Starrk actually reached up to clear out an ear with his pinkie. Lilynette’s jaw dropped into her lap and Soi Fon and Nanao looked at one another as if to ask ‘did you hear what I just heard?’

_Nel? Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck? Pregnant? By Renji?_

Yoruichi seemed to consider whether she ought to elaborate and then shrugged.

“Oh, I guess it’s safe to tell you lot. Szayel wasn’t holding Renji’s Claim after Orihime restored Zabimaru. Nel holds it. She has for the last five years. They’ve been meeting in secret and he’s been funnelling us information.”

When wide-eyed stares greeted the cat in response to the revelation, Yoruichi’s golden eyes rolled and she proceeded to give what Starrk figured was a heavily edited and condensed rendition of the half-decade of deception. When that failed to mitigate the shock on the faces of each of the listeners, the cat yawned and fixed them with a ‘geez, get over it already’ expression.

“What do you think happens when two people have sex? According to Szayel, he seems to have noticed that the odds of impregnation between Shinigami and Arrancar are much higher than if both partners are Arrancar or are Shinigami. In addition, pregnancy is more likely if the partners’ reiatsu levels are roughly equivalent or if one partner saturates the other with reiatsu for long enough. Doing so forces the other to become stronger, in the way that a callus will build up on skin exposed to constant friction. Szayel also mentioned some nonsense along the lines of positive and negative energy being more potent than just two positives or two negatives. Regardless, Renji went running off to find her when she wasn’t with the welcoming committee. Szayel had the balls to knock on their door and ask if he could examine the mother-to-be. I had to leave, so I hope to find him in one piece when I get back.”

Yoruichi leaped up onto Soi Fon’s shoulder. “Anything else?”

Starrk shook his head and lay back in the grass, his head heavy with information. He needed a comfortable place to rest it for a few minutes. Yoruichi had given him some things to consider and he needed to examine each of them. It would also be several hours before Yoruichi left. She and her subordinate clearly had fifteen years of catching up to do and Starrk knew better than to get in the way of two women who needed to talk to one another.

“We are really doing it, aren’t we Starrk?” Lilynette asked after Yoruichi and Soi Fon disappeared.

“Doing what?” he asked with a yawn.

“Planning to overthrow Aizen!” she whispered excitedly.

He looked over at Jushiro and the patch covering the man’s destroyed eye, compliments of Aizen. His friend was hopeful, though concern muted the exhilaration he could feel through their bond. He glanced over at Nanao. The woman met his gaze with determination in her dark blue eyes. If he had Nanao Claimed, he would probably receive the same emotions from her as from Jushiro. Both seemed more than ready to get rid of the tyrant.

“Yeah, we are,” he answered Lilynette’s question.

His smaller half smiled in satisfaction. For his part, Starrk couldn’t believe he was doing this. On the other hand, if he were honest with himself, he couldn’t believe it had taken him this long to get to this point.

The conversation stopped as a black butterfly fluttered into the clearing, making its way towards Jushiro. It landed on the Taichou’s finger and relayed its message before waiting for a reply. Jushiro stared at the little insect in apprehension. A jolt of worry nudged Starrk and prompted Lilynette to demand to know what the message contained.

“It would seem that all of the Arrancar, their Claimed pets and the top ten officers of each Division, are to meet with Aizen tomorrow evening after the end of the day shift,” he announced. “I am to make sure the officers of the 2nd Division get the message and report in, as well as to inform the two of you.”

“Why?” Lilynette asked before he could.

Jushiro shook his head, causing his long white mane to swish back and forth slightly. “The message contained no other details and I only know that it’s mandatory.”

“There may be one on its way to me too,” Nanao said thoughtfully. “I should go back to my Division to check and warn those officers who are still on duty about the meeting. I’ll let you know if the message sent to me differs in any way.”

Starrk frowned as his fraccion bowed to them and disappeared, wondering why Aizen would need _all_ his Arrancar and why there was so little notice. Something didn’t feel right about the set-up and his nose and his gut told him that it might be wise to sniff out any potential traps before he bit down on the bait. Jushiro whispered something to the tiny, ink-dark creature before it took off, fluttering back the way it came.

The lanky Espada slowly rose to his feet and stretched, his muscles protesting the change in orientation from horizontal to vertical. “Come on,” he ordered his two companions and gestured towards the closest doorway. It would mean street food for dinner, but there were worse things than takoyaki and chicken yakitori and he wanted the evening meal out of the way before they made it to Ulquiorra’s place and have to endure his mate’s strange brand of cooking. While his base animal would eat anything, even a starving coyote had some standards when it came to edibles.

“Where are we going?”

“To have a pleasant and informative evening with Ulquiorra and Harribel’s packs,” he answered and then paused as Lilynette practically danced around him, her one pink eye sparkling with happiness.

“Sweet! I totally get to tell him Ajuga nailed Diaemus though, you got that Shiro-chan?”

“Of course, Lilynette-chan,” Jushiro smiled at her, reaching out to ruffle her pale green hair.

“That’s Lilynette-sama to you, Shiro-chan,” she quipped back, and this time it held all of her usual spunk.

Yoruichi and Soi Fon walked in silence for some time, heading towards one of the many hideouts that the old 2nd Division used to use. Or rather, Soi Fon walked while she rode on the woman’s shoulders, much as she’d done with Abarai, the bulk of her body concealed by the folded hood of Soi Fon’s cloak. There were a thousand things that Yoruichi wanted to say, but she could not find the words. She had watched from a distance as her old pupil suffered, Barragan treating her little better than a dog and a sex toy for his unwilling pets. She had wanted to speak to her, to encourage her, to do anything to help her, but she couldn’t risk that Soi Fon had orders to attack and kill or subdue any of the Escapees. It had been hard enough to approach Byakuya. Initially, she’d only sent messages and support to him sparingly, through one of her disguised contacts… until Ajuga had accidentally flushed her out one day and she’d abruptly learned that Byakuya had no orders to apprehend her.

Now Soi Fon was free. True, Aizen still had a trace on her, but she knew the arrogant wannabe ‘god’ wouldn’t waste his time watching the trace on a heavily pregnant woman as long as she remained visible. The bastard’s attention would be squarely on his captive, Karin. As much as she loathed admitting it, the distraction that having a Royal under his thumb provided worked in the Escapees’ favour, and then some. She hated having to use the human woman in such a manner, but there was no help for it. Obsessed with one woman, he would most likely ignore the comings and goings of another.

Therefore, Soi Fon was free to go where she wanted. If anyone asked, she could claim that she was running errands for Harribel. Szayel and Starrk seemed confident that Harribel would support the planned coup, so Yoruichi could count on the Third backing up any story Soi Fon chose to spin.

As much as Yoruichi wanted to get to their destination and get down to brass tacks as far as coordinating things with this particular contact, there was one aspect of Soi Fon’s enslavement that, quite literally, stood between them, namely, her pregnancy. From the information Abarai Renji had supplied over the years, she knew it was unlikely that Barragan had sired the child. That left Ggio as the most-likely culprit. It also looked like Soi Fon was about to pop, and that could work against them.

“So, how far along are you?” she dared to ask.

:Five months: Soi Fon answered, her fingers moving deftly.

“You seem rather large for just five months.”

Her scepticism must have showed, because the shoulder she rode on stiffened.

:G G I O is a tiger. An Arrancar’s base creature affects the length of a hybrid pregnancy:

Her posture indicated her exasperation at the question. Since there was no hand sign for names, Soi Fon had to spell it out, ending that particular mystery.

Szayel _had_ mentioned that when he had begged a stony-faced Ishida Ryuuken for the chance to examine Nel and regaled them with his knowledge over hybrid pregnancies. She just hoped that someone thought to take a picture when Abarai finally saw the ultrasound images of his impending son. The first few had been real doozies. She’d wanted to be there, but duty had called.

“Has he treated you well?” Yoruichi asked with a threatening growl. Barragan may have been too dangerous to take out quickly, but the fraccion would be a quick and easy kill to one of her calibre.

Soi Fon paused briefly, before she bowed her head, which wasn’t really a ‘yes or a no’ in Yoruichi’s book. Reluctantly at first, but with growing enthusiasm, Soi Fon ran her through how things had started with Ggio, from his abrasive behaviour in the beginning to Yumichika helping to transform the Arrancar into a respectable, loving man. Perhaps Barragan’s abuse had hastened that journey but there was little denying that he’d fallen hard for her former student. Yoruichi felt any remaining tension between them evaporate as she watched the story unfold before her, Soi Fon’s hands flying through the hand signs with an excitement and intensity she hadn’t seen in some time, right up to her pregnancy and other current events.

It left Yoruichi with a bittersweet taste in her mouth. She’d been the focus of Soi Fon’s hero worship for so long. It was strange to discover a still-captive Arrancar and his unborn cub had dethroned her, but in many ways, it was for the best.

_So my little bee finally fell in love. Who knew it would be under such terrible circumstances?_

“So, are you having a boy or girl?” she asked, genuinely curious at the end of the nearly forty-five minute narration. They were almost at their destination and the basket she carried on her arm had a few bundles of fish and salt in it, to give the illusion that she was truly shopping.

:Girl:

_That_ tickled Yoruichi’s fancy. She had seen Ggio around of course, and wanted to see what kind of offspring her former subordinate and the Arrancar would have. Ajuga and Diaemus were truly something to behold. From the glowing way that their father and their guardian spoke of them, she guessed that the twins were quite fetching, though more human-looking than the older two. Nel and Renji’s son would look like something that had stepped from the pages of a storybook, if the sonograms weren’t lying, so it stood to reason that this child would be extraordinary too.

Yoruichi’s good mood dwindled. Kisuke would have _loved_ studying the hybrid children, but he was long gone. Aizen had made certain of that. She shuddered, recalling the sight of the genius’s blood flowing down his back and chest from the white sheathed hand that had impaled Kisuke’s chest and withdrew the ex-Shinigami’s heart. His body had hit the rubble while Aizen had crushed the beating organ with one hand, tossing the dark remnants away before he’d dispatched an equally unconscious ‘Isshin.’

Surrounded by enemies and with their failure all but writ in the debris stretching for miles in all directions, Yoruichi chose to flee before the thing that Aizen had become could kill her too.

The memories served as fuel for her nightmares, enough that she was glad that Ichigo hadn’t seen what had become of Urahara Kisuke and his father. She’d had enough strength left to change her form, leaving her clothing and her scruples behind in a bid to save her life. Knowing when to abandon a fight that one simply could not win in favour of regrouping and trying to salvage what one could of a bad situation was how the 2nd Division operated. She’d taken a grievously injured Hiyori and Hachi with her and while Aizen had created the Ouken in the Soul Society, she’d scavenged Kisuke’s main lab for anything and everything she could carry with her. In the very first instance of many that she thanked the universe that Hachi had the ability to think calmly under pressure, the fat Vizard had used a forbidden Kido to transport the majority of her dead friend’s notes, his completed devices and projects and the three of them as far away as possible from Karakura. He’d promptly passed out from exhaustion in the middle of one of the Vizards’ many hiding spots, leaving Yoruichi to do her best to heal Hiyori before she too collapsed.

A few rough days later, they’d used Kisuke’s iffy Garganta creator to try to retrieve anyone they could find in Hueco Mundo, including Nel, as Ichigo and Rukia wouldn’t leave the Arrancar child behind and Kenpachi figured she could serve as Yachiru’s playmate. There was no one else to retrieve and Yoruichi had been particularly embittered to find the body of Yamada Hanataro, his Zanpakuto drawn, having healed Kuchiki Rukia at the cost of his own life. Rukia had been crying, trying in vain to wake up the healer when Yoruichi had found her. The only thing that had saved Ichigo had been Ulquiorra’s single-mindedness once he’d won the fight with the boy. Claiming Orihime had been more important to the Fourth Espada than finishing Ichigo off, giving Yoruichi a chance to haul the brat out of Hueco Mundo alive. Zaraki Kenpachi, on the other hand, would have cheerfully spent the next century strolling around Hueco Mundo picking fights with the locals, and only the promise of getting to battle Ichigo once more, as well as a bag of candy dangled in front of Yachiru, convinced the two to leave with her.

She whispered an abbreviated version of this into Soi Fon’s ear, to give her former student and supporter the bare bones of what had happened to her, and to the Escapees in the few days following the Gotei 13’s defeat.

“We failed. We failed badly and I wish I could have come for you. I truly wanted to, but Nel explained to us that with such a victory, Claims were sure to have been cast, and when I learned of Aizen’s law...” Yoruichi trailed off unhappily. “It took me almost a year to find where you had been taken, and by whom. With Aizen in control of every gateway, all we have are Kisuke‘s devices to get us here and back again undetected. They are on timers and we only have so many of them. I can occasionally slip through by following others through a Senkaimon, but you know how subtle Ichigo, Kenpachi, Yachiru and Hiyori are.”

Soi Fon rolled her eyes, indicating that she knew exactly what her former teacher meant. Those four were anything but inconspicuous.

“Thus, I have been the one spying and learning what I can on my trips here. That includes the location of each Arrancar ‘den’ and notes on which Arrancar holds which Claim. We have made and scrapped a million plans over the years, once we had a better picture of what was going on in the Seireitei.

“The biggest hurdle is Aizen’s immortality, thanks to that blasted gem in his chest. Without Kisuke…”

She choked, falling silent for a moment and Soi Fon rested a hand on her furry head in an effort to comfort her before she found her voice again. “We’ve made and abandoned a million different plans. Without Kisuke, we have no way to counteract Aizen’s wrongfully acquired powers. Szayel is going over his notes now, but until we can neutralize Aizen, his regenerative abilities and that blasted Zanpakuto of his, nothing we do will make any difference in the long run. If we kill off his Espada, he will simple execute all Taichou-class Shinigami, exactly as his law states.”

Soi Fon sighed at the cat’s admission, understanding her mentor’s frustration. Her fingers formed a different question, one mostly unrelated to the bastard who had nearly managed to destroy all of creation.

:How have things been in the Living World?:

The cat made a face in response.

“The weather has been horrible for the last year, the natural disasters _were_ getting worse as the Realms slipped farther out of balance, at least up until Ajuga sat on the Throne. Oh, there was almost a world war among the humans. A number of nations fought about some secret weapon that could destroy one hundred-thousand souls in the space of a day and leave most of the city’s building’s standing, but in the last round of negotiations, cooler heads prevailed.”

The mute woman stared down at the cat in horror, perhaps more so because of the tired, almost flippant way Yoruichi had said it. Then the Shihoin Heir realized that she hadn’t been talking about the Living World in general, but rather about those who had eluded Aizen’s control.

_How does one describe the daily lives of such a motley, difficult-to-handle bunch of misfits?_ Yoruichi wondered with no small amount of irritation. _Kisuke would have had them sorted out in no time. All I can do is ride herd on them and keep them from killing one another._

Rather than voice her real thoughts, she chose to polish up the truth a bit for Soi Fon’s benefit. She spent the last ten minutes of the walk telling Soi Fon what she felt was safe to pass on, making certain that no one overhead her.

“Oh, where to start? Ichigo and Rukia have long since hooked up, just as you and I thought they would, but they are forestalling any children in hopes of having them here after Aizen’s death. It wouldn’t be right to haul youngsters around in the cloak and dagger lifestyle we’ve had to live, not to mention any children might have drawn the Swarm’s attention thanks to Ichigo’s bloodlines. Sarugaki Hiyori is still the most spiteful little bitch I’ve ever run across, Kenpachi is still a menace to polite society and I think I would have lost my mind half-a-decade ago if Ushōda Hachigen and Nel weren’t there to help smooth things over on a daily basis. Nel’s such a sweetheart that I keep forgetting she’s an Arrancar. She has reunited with Renji, so I personally hope that she’ll stop mooning about, worrying over him. I’m sure they’ll be absolutely sickening to watch once they crawl out from Nel’s room.”

Soi Fon made a sympathetic sound after Yoruichi finished with the litany of her companions’ shortcomings. In truth, it was a miracle that they’d remained at large as long as they had. The noble suspected that if Aizen really wanted them caught, he would have pulled out all of the stops to do so. It wasn’t particularly comforting to think he’d considered them nuisances at best and problems to round up at his leisure at worst.

Taking in her surroundings, her ears perked up and she rubbed her whiskers against Soi Fon’s cheek to get her attention.

“We are almost there. I should take the lead,” Yoruichi declared, bringing an end to the catching up and storytelling.

:Who is your main contact?: Soi Fon asked, looking at the storefronts and stalls of the 51st District. The place was close to the great winding river, though on the better side of it and the tang of fish hung in the air. Every other stall hawked some kind of river-dweller and a sniff told her that one or two streets down, she’d find the eel merchants, and maybe roasted eel on a stick. The cat salivated a bit before she turned aside.

Food could wait. Their contact could not.

“Someone I think you will be very pleased to see. You might not recognize him though. He’s roughly half the man he used to be, thanks to hard living.”

Yoruichi jumping from her shoulder to lead the way for the last block, sticking to the shadows as only a cat could. Soi Fon followed her, slowed down by the large bulge in her front, but otherwise able to keep up. Suzumebachi was in her usual place across her back, and probably helped her keep her balance. It didn’t take long to reach the safe house, as they had to duck down an alley to reach the doorway and the slovenly-looking man guarding it. At first glance, an uninitiated observer might take his slouching stance and his rheumy eyes as those of an inebriated layabout. However, someone trained to know what to look for would have noticed the fact that he had one hand on a blade hidden in his clothing and eyed them sharply as the cat and the woman approached. A real Rukongai thug, even drunk, would have been on Soi Fon in a heartbeat with the intent to rob her.

The lookout let them pass without stirring and Soi Fon lowered her eyes in appreciation for his display of skills, including keeping his face in the same sullen expression and not showing any sign of recognition. Yoruichi scratched at the doorjamb in the appropriate code, before waiting a moment. An echoing set of scratches sounded from within, like the scratch of a writing implement across a sheet of rough paper. The cat duly entered, pushing her way past the mat that separated the inside of the lair from the alley outside and after another second, Soi Fon eased her way through as well, peering into the gloom with some difficulty while her eyes adjusted.

“So, the rumours _are_ true.”

A deeply familiar, very male voice rumbled somewhere to her right. Yoruichi, perched on the table where her contact sat, had to suppress a chuckle as her former protégé took in the man on the other side of the rough wooden table. His Zanpakuto rested on the splintery surface, half-in and half-out of the wrappings that would have disguised it as a fishmonger’s wares. The get-up came complete with a false fish tail, its carefully painted scales glittering in the dim light coming from under the hanging mat over the doorway. The thing was big enough to slip over the hilt and tsuba of a sheathed blade.

“Pregnancy looks good on you, Soi Fon-chan. You are almost as wide as you are tall,” he laughed, though the humour in that cackle was scarce. The scratch of a match drawn across the table and the ‘fzz’ as the tip flared to life mingled with the smaller woman’s gasp. The face of someone Soi Fon had thought as good as dead materialized from the darkness. A smug Yoruichi watched as her subordinate’s face contorted in shock at the sight of the man she had once answered to as a 3rd Seat, though the years of eking out an existence in secret had shaved at least one hundred pounds off his once husky frame. Her fingers trembled slightly as she spelled out his name. If the language had an exclamation point, she would have tacked that on too.

:O M A E D A:


	66. Midnight Confessions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ichigo and Grimmjow have a heart to heart conversation.

Grimmjow paced about the large estate, feeling trapped behind invisible walls. He couldn’t get any sleep. His mind and body refused to rest after the first night of being here, when the after-effects of the adrenaline rush wore off and he crashed for nearly half a day. A headache had been waiting for him when he awoke.

He had checked constantly down the Claim over the last two days, but the emotions he got from Karin were faint, thanks to the distance between them. He had felt the odd jolt of love hit him a time or two, no doubt a message from her to him that she was fine. However, those were feeble and they hardly helped calm his nerves. Yoruichi’s surveillance run hadn’t yielded much information on Karin’s condition, although he felt both satisfied and relieved knowing that Starrk was now wholly on their side, as were Harribel and Ulquiorra. The Fourth would be pissed when he learned Aizen would most likely kill his son and force himself on Orihime should the usurper ever learn that Ajuga had taken Diaemus as her Consort. His parents were now part of the Royal Family, like it or not and that came with a few built-in hazards. The bastard would probably kill Ulquiorra as well, to keep the bat from making a fuss or competing with him for the Throne.

_Which puts a target on my ass as well,_ he grunted angrily. _Or worse, he’ll keep me around, caged in the basement to keep Karin in line._

His foot kicked a half-rotten apple, fallen from one of the fruit trees around him in the previous year, from the path and farther out into the orchard’s grass. Instead of shivering at the thought, he continued his sulky march through the blooming branches. Running back to the Seireitei now would just get him killed, or worse, captured. The last thing he wanted was for Aizen to use him as a tool to break Karin’s spirit.

“How come _you_ didn’t sit on the stupid Throne?” he asked his equally dour companion. It had been something that had been bothering him since the shit storm had started. If Karin was of Royal Blood, then so was Ichigo, and unlike Karin, the Hybrid was strong enough to fend Aizen off.

“You can thank the Hollow soul residing inside of me. Apparently, I’m not good enough for the Throne,” came Ichigo’s waspish answer. “Besides, if I had, Aizen would have just created another Ouken using a different city. He would have slaughtered even more people to get back into the Royal Realm and ‘deal’ with me. Once he’d killed me, because of that damned gem, he’d have still gone after Karin, just like he’s doing now and _you_ would have had zero warning when he did so.”

Like him, Ichigo couldn’t sleep, and when they had cross paths at the wide double doors leading to the gardens, they had started walking together down a well-worn path that the human knew very well, if his ease at navigating it in the dark was any indication of the number of sleepless nights he’d spent treading it.

“Ajuga is part Hollow,” he growled, not liking how logical Ichigo’s explanation for his inaction sounded, nor how likely such a scenario was.

“Yes, but her soul is still her soul. I have more than one soul in my body, sometimes three if you count Zangetsu. In fact, you could almost say I have two fathers. Shiba Isshin,” he said, his voice sounding pained, “and my Hollow.”

With that question answered, Grimmjow began to dwell on his missing mate and his helplessness to do anything for her. He had never felt so weak in his entire life, not even when he had first met Aizen as an Adjuchas. The renegade Shinigami had all but forced him to become an Arrancar. Refusal was unheard of, mostly because no one heard from those who refused Aizen’s ‘gift’ ever again. No Hollow would turn his or her back on more power, but the chains that came with it were more than he liked.

“How the fuck did you manage this shit for fifteen years?” he growled in frustration, barely restraining the urge to punch one of the tree trunks. Ichigo bared his teeth in Grimmjow’s direction, before turning his eyes back to the path.

“I thought they were dead for the first five of them. I mourned them, had their names put on the family marker along with our parents’ names. Then Yoruichi stumbled across someone that she thought was an older version of my sister while she was in the Seireitei conducting reconnaissance and watched your ‘den’ for a few days to make certain she was right about the two girls living there… along with the Arrancar holding them.”

The human shoved his hands deeper into his pants’ pockets and hunched his shoulders.

“She told me they were unharmed when she broke the news that my sisters were alive,” Ichigo continued, then gave him the mother of all dirty looks. “Hell, I didn’t find out you and Karin were… involved with one another until Yuzu told me on the day I rescued her.”

“That was a good day.” Grimmjow couldn’t help but grin slightly at the memory of Karin picking him over Ichigo. Ichigo’s scowl deepened. Karin hadn’t had any nice things to say to her brother that day. Looking at the human male, the Espada suddenly had the urge to try to explain the ‘why’ of Karin’s choice, perhaps because, for better or worse, Ichigo was now his brother-in-law. They also had a common goal: to rescue Karin and kill Aizen. Like it or not, they were pack, though only time would tell if the temporary state of détente between them would hold. Hell, he thought, if the two of them managed to make it back to the house without going at one another again, it would be an achievement.

“She was pregnant by then,” Grimmjow confessed, scratching his scalp and his unruly powder blue hair with his nails.

Ichigo blinked at him.

“Huh?”

“That day in the park, when she chose me over you… she was already pregnant. She was going to tell the others, but our battle interrupted it. She was upset about chasing you away, got real upset about it actually. It hurt her, but she didn’t want you sticking around and getting into deep shit, so she told you to get lost. That and she didn’t want to raise her child alone. She said that no one should ever be denied a parent if possible and it wouldn’t be fair to keep my cub from me.

“You know,” he paused, unable to believe that he was going to confess something so personal to his former enemy, “I was actually afraid, terrified really, that she was going to go with you. Just the thought that I would never get to see my child…” he found himself unwilling, and unable, to continue that vein of thought.

Ichigo remained silent beside him for some time, digesting that information, before his shoulders slumped even further and he stared at the ground. When he finally spoke, it was with some grudging respect, to Grimmjow’s surprise.

“She was right, you know. Everything she said that day was true, even the harsh things she had to say to me. Yuzu... has no real life here. Ryuuken paid for her education via private tutors so no one would know she never finished school, and she seems happy being a trophy wife and entertaining high-profile political figures. Nevertheless, she missed her family. I couldn’t stick around, since Aizen’s actively hunting us and we had to stay on the move. Her marriage, while I wouldn’t say it’s ‘loveless,’ just isn’t all that romantic of a union. All of her friends from school died when Aizen made the Ouken and she lost out on five years. The Living World… well, things move pretty quickly here and if you don’t keep up, people start to pick up on the fact that you don’t quite fit in. There is no one here that would understand what she has been through, or who we are, or what she has seen and can see.”

Grimmjow watched as Ichigo reached out and placed his palm on the trunk of one of the apple trees, his fingers moving over the rough bark. The man’s expression was troubled and contrite.

“Man, I can’t believe I am telling you this, but I regret taking her some days. Yuzu has told me, on numerous occasions, how well you took care of them, protected them when I couldn’t. At least over there she wasn’t on the run for several years, living in dumps and dives before Ryuuken took her in and married her. In the Seireitei, she had real friends, not the fake faces she has here,” Ichigo sighed, looking back towards the large mansion that served as his sister’s home. “These last few months have been the longest I’ve spent in her company since she got married, thanks to Nel’s pregnancy, but aside from the staff and Ryuuken, she has almost no one. I guess, what I mean to say is, thanks Grimmjow, for keeping them safe when… I couldn’t. I failed everyone, but especially them.”

The Espada didn’t answer, feeling embarrassed and oddly pleased at having received such acknowledgement from Ichigo. Looking at the grown man beside him, he couldn’t help but to notice that this Ichigo was definitely not the one he remembered and once hated. The cocky attitude he once had was gone, replaced by the brooding of a man who had tasted a very bitter, very devastating defeat and had paid very dearly for it.

To Grimmjow, it almost felt like a travesty, as if something had gone terribly wrong with the universe. Kurosaki _ought_ to be in his face, willing to scrap for as long as it took to win. Where was the kid who thought he could bowl over anything that got in his way, who wanted to protect everyone and everything, single-handedly?

He cracked his knuckles, shaking out the tension in his arms and shoving his hands in his pockets, mimicking Ichigo’s posture as he tried to think of what to say next.

“So…you and the runt huh? She is a lot stronger than I remember, although I must confess I never paid her much mind once I pushed her out of the way to take you on.”

Ichigo’s brown eyes, pupils gone large in the darkness, narrowed as he probably remembered exactly _how_ Grimmjow had ‘shoved’ her aside when the two had first encountered one another. Apparently, he decided not to pursue any hostilities, such as cutting his ‘brother-in-law’ in half with his _Getsuga Tensho_. Instead, he looked up at the night sky.

“Yeah. It just sort of happened, although, no one was really surprised. I never really thought about it until I was performing a konso on an older woman, out in Osaka, who thought we were a couple. That was… four or five years ago, I think. She’d been a disembodied Plus for a couple of days and there were a few Hollows sniffing around looking for a meal. Rukia took care of those while I sent her on her way.”

“Oh?”

The man smiled faintly, still not looking at Grimmjow, but out at the starlight, as if fondly remembering the encounter.

“She said to me, once she found out that Rukia and I were just good friends, that ‘the best thing she ever did, was to marry her best friend.’ It got us both kind of thinking, and things just sort of fell into place after that. We made it official about two years ago, courtesy of the paperwork we filed with the Tokyo city registrar’s office. It’s easy to hide the evidence in the bureaucracy of a large metropolitan area.”

Grimmjow thought over the stacks of redundant paperwork he’d seen Karin, Jushiro and Nanao drag home on occasion and had to agree with the man.

“Before we have children, however, we want to get Byakuya’s blessing. Mostly because I don’t want him to use Senbonzakura to slit my throat. Not that we haven‘t consummated our marriage, several times over. It’s just the principle of the thing.”

The Espada bit down on his lip before he could point out that after everything Yammy had put the noble through, the last thing on Byakuya’s mind, if there was anything left of it, would be Ichigo and Rukia’s marital status. Ajuga was terribly worried over her childhood friend and kanji teacher. Grimmjow wasn’t certain he ought to tell Ichigo that the man was all but broken, or to keep quiet about the Kuchiki man’s state for now. The more he picked up on Ichigo’s body language, the more his instincts told him to keep his mouth closed. There was also the thankfully short fight that afternoon to rehash.

“Your wife has a vicious left hook.”

Ichigo’s faint smile faded and he shook his head, closing his eyes as if a sudden headache had jumped him from behind one of the trees.

“She was mad about what Szayel did to Renji. Personally, I think she should have been able to get a few more throws in, but Yoruichi insists on letting him live. Rukia’s sort of upset right now. I don’t think she understands how that idiot could have forgiven him.”

Grimmjow turned and shrugged, taking a few steps down the path and pulling a few stray apple blooms from his hair, as well as brushing some of the strays from his jacket.

“Don’t look at me. I ain’t Red’s keeper. I do know Abarai tried to kill him a few years ago, before Karin stopped him. Can’t say I didn’t think Szayel deserved a beating then too, but they worked it out, kind of, and what they didn’t work out, Red and I worked out with a few sparring sessions.”

The human followed him, not quite done with the topic of the Seventh Espada.

“Do you think Szayel will be able to make any sense of Kisuke’s research notes? There has to be a way to rid Aizen of that stupid jewel!” Ichigo fumed, airing what was apparently an old frustration aloud. Grimmjow shrugged, truly not knowing.

“If anyone can figure out what this Kisuke scribbled down, he can. Whether there’s anything valuable in it or not… well, that’s a different story.”

They ambled the darkened orchard path carefully, before Ichigo broke the silence again, bringing up a topic that made Grimmjow wish they were still talking about Abarai’s nine-year ‘nap.’

“Yuzu told me Karin sold herself to you to keep her safe,” Ichigo commented, a hint of steel in his voice.

_Huh? First, you thank me for taking care of them and then you ask me this? Damn… make up your mind, Strawberry!_ Grimmjow growled to himself, and then growled at his mate’s brother.

“I don’t do rape, and I mean that from a human perspective, not just a hollow,” he snarled. “I would have courted her properly, but Karin was right, Yuzu just looked like a good, quick fuck to me at the time. She’s still quite a dish, if you ask me.”

Ichigo’s eye twitched dangerously at the comment about his sister. If it wasn’t for the fact that they still had bruises and aches from their first fight two days ago, Grimmjow might have had yet another tussle on his hands. Hachi had refused to heal either of them, telling them that ‘pain is an excellent teacher.’ The Sixth would have left it there and been more than thrilled to chase away his sorrow with another mindless battle. Instead, he forced himself to do the civilized thing and keep talking.

“Look, I never forced Karin. Had she really not wanted it, or me, I would have let her off the hook, but she seemed to enjoy it. After a while, _I_ was the one doing the asking and by then we’d managed to Claim each other. Never thought I’d be lucky enough to have something like that, with someone like her.”

Grimmjow let out sigh and stopped walking, leaning back against one of the flowering trees. Ichigo leaned against the tree opposite him so they faced one another.

“Fuck me sideways, I love the damn bitch,” he cursed. “I won’t lie to you Kurosaki. It was a _major_ turn on knowing your sister came willingly to my bed. Then when I learned she was pregnant… do you know how rare Hollow cubs are?” he asked.

“I have an idea,” Ichigo muttered. “Nel brought it up frequently when she found out she was carrying Renji’s child. Probably because I wanted to tear him limb from limb for _getting_ her pregnant,” he added grumpily.

“Yeah, well it took about a week for it to sink in when she told me, and even then, there are times I just stare at Ajuga and go, holy fuck that’s mine! That was the best day of my life, even if those three fuck-faces made a go for her and Yuzu. You should have seen the mess she made of Blonde!” he chuckled, then paused. “Fuck, forget that…you should have seen the mess she made of Nnoitra!”

“You mean stick boy?” Ichigo asked curiously. “The bastard that tried to do you in after our battle in Hueco Mundo? The one Kenpachi almost finished off before being drawn away by the prospect of more battles?”

Grimmjow curled his lip hatefully, not wanting to recall that particular part of their fight. He didn’t exactly blame Nnoitra for making a move. It was what Hollows generally did and Nnoitra had a tendency to act solely on his instincts. If either Nnoitra or Ichigo hadn’t done him in, he would have had the dishonour of the bloody Exequias offing him, which would have been an incredibly pathetic way to go. At least Nnoitra was a higher ranked Espada.

“Yeah him. She gave him a bloody nose when he tried to force her to go with him and Szayel to Szayel’s den for a mandatory exam. Poor bastard was pouting for weeks after getting his face bashed in by a human girl.”

Ichigo smirked back at him, and then heaved another sigh. His voice took on an odd tone, one that Grimmjow couldn’t quite place.

“You really love her?” he asked

“Yeah,” he answered, looking up at the stars overhead. “And I failed her...”

God it hurt, admitting that. Who knew having a woman in his life could cause such pain? Was this what Ichigo had felt when he had believed that his sisters were dead? If so, the substitute Shinigami was tougher than Grimmjow thought. If he knew Karin had died, and had he not had Ajuga with him, he doubted he would have the strength to keep moving forward. Alternatively, he would have thrown himself against Aizen and welcomed death while doing as much damage as he could.

Ajuga. There was a safer, less problematic conversation topic. Grimmjow latched on to the subject of his daughter and tossed it Ichigo’s way.

“So what do you think about your niece?”

“She’s a lot like her mother,” Ichigo answered, almost hesitating and Grimmjow figured he might have made a mistake about discussing his daughter with the human. Still, Ichigo’s observation was accurate and Grimmjow couldn’t help laughing.

“Yeah, well I can see plenty of you in her too,” Ichigo grumbled, “and I am not just talking about her looks.”

Ichigo probably meant the latter as some kind of dig at him. If he had, Grimmjow was about to set him straight. Pride dripped from every word out of the Espada’s mouth.

“I can take the credit for her hunting skills, no problem. You should have seen her as a cub!” He couldn’t help but grin widely at the memories. When Ichigo looked at him, confused, he decided to share. “One day, while taking her for a walk in one of the many parks, she showed off her skills and brought us rabbits for dinner. While Karin doesn’t mind her hunting, she takes exception to Ajuga coming back with dead things in her mouth.”

Ichigo’s eye twitched at the story and he gave Grimmjow a look of disgust. The blue-haired Arrancar shrugged at his reaction, chalking it up to the other being a weak-stomached human who wouldn’t know the joys of a freshly caught rabbit if the bunny did a dance on his face and wriggled a skinned leg at him.

“Anyhow, Karin told me that if Ajuga managed to bring back a deer, _I_ was carrying it back, which lead to a bit of foreplay…” He rolled his eyes as Ichigo sent him a dark glare, “…but before things could get steamy, damn if Ajuga didn’t come back dragging a bloody deer”

Ichigo shook his head, as if trying to dispel the image of the girl he’d just met yesterday pulling home a kill much larger than she was. Grimmjow surmised that bringing home prey wasn’t something that little human girls did on a regular basis.

Since Yoruichi and Hachi had quarantined Ajuga and Diaemus until they could get a handle on their new abilities, and spend some time rebalancing the Realms, neither man had seen much of the children. Yoruichi argued that the last thing they needed was the distraction of a family fight weighing on them. The Escapees’ leader had promised Grimmjow that taking a few days to acclimate to their new responsibilities would be a good thing. In that amount of time, the two would learn enough via ‘on the job training’ to ensure that any outside stimulation wouldn’t affect their performances. Until then, she’d warned, it would be best to leave them alone to sort things out.

He pushed off from the tree he leaned against, and Ichigo did the same. Together they continued on their late night trek, swapping stories about how life had been for them. He did most of the talking, as Ichigo seemed content to listen to stories of his niece. It helped only a little to ease the strain between them and their shared pain regarding Karin. However, it was better than doing nothing and sparring was out of the question, at least for the moment.

“Word of advice, Grimmjow…” Ichigo murmured as they neared the house, having completed the circuitous route around the Ishida Estate’s grounds.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t tell one of those stories about Ajuga and the rabbits around my wife.”

“Why not?”

“She has a thing for rabbits.”

“So do I, they’re tasty.”

“Just keep it to yourself. You’ll live longer. Trust me.”


	67. Of Mended Lids and Cracked Pots

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter written by Black Fox.

Rukia finished scrubbing the second of two woks, ran the hottest water the tap had to offer over it to rinse it and placed it gingerly on the counter to dry, along with the rest of the cookware from lunch. While the plates and tableware usually ended up in the dishwasher, the rest of the pots and pans had to be cleaned by hand, as she would in a typical mess hall, and after nearly four months of living at the Ishida Estate, she’d come to think of the place as a substitute Division.

“Uh oh.”

Maybe that was a good thing. Brooding about her sprawling family Estate, the remnants of the Kuchiki Clan and her captive brother wasn’t going to help, and this neo-classical, Western-style mansion did little to remind her of the ‘home’ she’d lost when the Seireitei had fallen. Chores like dishes and sweeping also made her feel grounded… something she’d discovered she needed once the Escapees had settled in for a long stay.

“Rukia-chan?”

Unfortunately, there were occasionally ‘kitchen casualties’ with this many people inhabiting the house. She’d pulled the last piece to scrub from the soapy water, one of the wok lids, and then stared at the thin crack revealed when the suds on it dribbled back into the dishwater.

“Rukia!”

There was a hand on her shoulder, one she didn’t remember when it touched her and Rukia realized she’d been woolgathering at the sink. The hot steam rising from the still-running water made the hair at her temples stick to her chin. Brushing it away with the back of a wet hand, she looked back at Yuzu apologetically.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to waste the water. It looks like this one needs repairing.”

She held it up to show the woman a few feet away, placing clean glasses into their proper place in an upper cupboard. Yuzu peered at it, and then chuckled.

“That’s strange. I didn’t notice it was damaged when I stir-fried the vegetables. I’ll ask the staff and see if anyone knows anything. It’s not the end of the world. The bottom’s the important part, after all, and you know what they say about cracked lids and mended pots.”

“Do you want me to dry?”

Rukia flicked her eyes towards the stack of pots on the counter. Yuzu shook her head and closed the cabinet.

“Don’t bother. Let them air dry. I’ll just dirty them again when I start supper preparations, so storing them for an hour will be a waste of time. Now that you bring it up, I don’t think I’ve actually put _any_ of these away in the cupboards since the beginning of winter.”

Rukia gave her sister-in-law a look that bordered on guilty.

“We’re a horde, nee-san and now there are even more mouths to feed…”

“Feh,” the pretty blonde woman replied and being taller, reached up and contemplatively stroked her fingers down the maple wood face of the cabinet door she’d just closed. “It’s silly, but sometimes I imagine the china, the crystal, the silver fish forks and tea services get lonely in this big kitchen with just me and Ishida-san and the occasional dinner party. I’m sure they enjoy being out with such lively company for a change!”

The wistful look in Yuzu’s warm brown eyes, so much like her older brother’s, as she scanned the wine glasses in the cabinet in front of her made Rukia wonder, not for the first time, if they’d done the right thing in allowing Yuzu to accept Ryuuken’s offer. If it was one thing Rukia understood, it was feeling lost in a very large house filled with very expensive things, with new and unexpected ties to someone reluctant to express any feelings.

The kitchen suddenly seemed, for all its size, a tad claustrophobic and the petite Shinigami quickly untied the apron she wore. Hanging it up on the hook next to the refrigerator, she bowed to her sister-in-law and murmured something hasty about checking up on Ichigo’s progress. He’d spent the morning demolishing the last of the compromised retaining walls. Yuzu told her to go ahead, to make sure her ‘Ni-san’ wasn’t ‘overdoing it, as usual.’

Once out the back door and free of the house, she took a few deep breaths of spring air and tried to hone in on her husband’s unique reiatsu. It was, thankfully, exactly where it was supposed to be. Half of the Ishida Estate’s grounds sloped uphill, into the wooded forests that dotted the foothills to the west of Karakura. To protect the main house and the separate, smaller guest house occupied by the majordomo and his family from mudslides and other problems, past generations had built a series of reinforced stone walls and paths, effectively terracing a third of the Estate’s acreage.

While they’d lasted for over a century, the last several years had done a number on their structural integrity. With the Realms so badly out of balance, Japan had been hit by repeated earthquakes, a tsunami along the coast, and unseasonably torrential rains in autumn and record-setting snow and ice over the winter. It had been so cold that Rukia would have sworn she was in Hokkaido, or points even farther north, rather than Honshu. While the snow had begun to recede a month ago, the dramatic warm-up and spring runoff had contributed to the weakening of at least three of the walls and the subsequent crumbling of two of them. The small earth slide that resulted had wiped out the cobbled path that wound its way up the hill to a sitting area that overlooked the Estate and the city beyond it.

Clearing the path of mud and debris was just one of the many chores that Rukia’s little group of survivors had taken on while they were Yuzu and Ryuuken’s guests. Of their motley little band, Ichigo and Kenpachi were the most suited to hard manual labour. Kenpachi, unfortunately, had the strength but not the temperament for drudge work, so it fell to Ichigo to handle excavating the paths of mud, dirt and debris, as well as hauling the supplies the masons would need up the hill to the three spots they’d be most needed.

She paused briefly on the way up to admire the rapidly greening forest around them and to brush her fingers along the newly-unfurled, verdant leaves of a maple. They were all over the property, but that didn’t surprise her very much. Its five-lobed leaves echoed the other Quincy emblems scattered here and there throughout the house and the grounds. She hadn’t realized the orchard had been planted in the shape of a pentacle until Yuzu pointed it out. The hillside would be gorgeous in the autumn. If they were lucky, their motley little band of refugees would get to see it. She had to believe that the events of the last few days meant an end to their running. The alternative was too depressing to contemplate for long. Then she heard the barking, coming from higher up on the hill, followed by vague shouts of masculine outrage.

_Oh, no. Not again._

Rukia decided it would be best to deal with what she knew she would find once she reached the worksite quickly and used Shunpo to dash past the two sections Ichigo had already dug out to the highest, weather-ravaged wall.

“Aargh! Back off! Stop it!”

The sight that greeted her as she rounded the last turn on the path almost made her laugh out loud. Ichigo sat atop a tall pile of bags of quick-setting cement and sand, draped by a tarp to keep them dry. Two black and tan Doberman pinschers had him cornered, neither looked willing to let their shared quarry escape. It was only a matter of time before the guard dogs tried to climb the pile after him. What made the sight more comical was the fact that Tadashi, the larger of the two beasts, had her husband’s T-shirt in its jaws, shaking it back and forth like a rag and eyeing Ichigo in a way that said ‘you’re next.’ The smaller dog, Jun, paced back and forth at the bottom of pile of bags, waiting for the man above to slip off the tarp or make a mistake and get his work boot within chewing distance.

Sighing deeply, Rukia took a step forward to diffuse the situation and get the animals that were supposed to be an integral part of the Ishida security system under control, when her husband yelled once more, shaking his gloved fist at them:

“Stupid mutts! Go find a rabbit to chase or something! I have work to do! Quit it!”

Her eyes narrowed.

Rukia summarily stepped backwards.

Maybe some time up there would do him some good, she considered.

The noisy arrival of two children scuttled that plan. They nearly ran into her as they barrelled up the path. She deftly moved aside and let them pass, feeling the breeze they created in their wake. The oldest, his eyes huge and his magenta hair tousled, snapped back at his younger, darker-haired sibling.

“Moe, call them off before we get into trouble!”

“Why do I hafta? You’re th’one who messed up and didn’ lock the kennel, Ginjou!”

“‘Cause they listen to you!”

“Jun! Tadashi! C’mere boys!” the smaller of the two children bellowed out, gasping after the hard run up the hill. “You aren’t s’posed to eat people!”

The dogs, upon hearing the young, urgent voice, turned as a unit and made straight for the brothers. Ordinarily, Rukia would have drawn Sode No Shirayuki the moment the Dobermans had shown an interest in a new target, but after spending the last few months at the Ishida Estate, she’d learned a few things about these particular animals.

First, as they demonstrated the moment they got within a few feet of the two children, their entire demeanour changed, from vicious attack dogs to canines whose sole purpose in life was to lick small boys to death. Second, their value as ‘guard dogs’ was somewhat questionable and depended on who they encountered. Rukia watched as Ginjou and Moe’s presence transformed the beasts into whimpering, squirming pups, their docked tails vibrating like a bumblebee’s butt.

“Hey, knock it off, Jun!” Ginjou grumbled as he tried to get his hands on Tadashi’s collar. Meanwhile, Jun had pinned the younger brother to the ground and lapped at the six-year-old boy’s nose until the kid dissolved into a fit of giggles.

Rukia, in the meantime, had cautiously approached the muddle between her and her increasingly irritated husband. Both dogs’ heads went up as they caught her scent and she snorted when they gave the canine equivalent of a shrug and went back to trying to wash both children’s faces. Neither pooch saw any of the females who lived there as threats, including Hiyori. They also ignored the ever-serene Hachi. Yoruichi had taught both dogs a lesson with her claws while in her cat form that had stuck with them and they gave her a wide berth.

They obediently followed the staff and Ryuuken’s orders, sat at Yuzu’s feet in the garden while she tended the early vegetables in the raised beds and immediately rolled over and showed their throats when in Kenpachi’s presence. Rukia considered that an understandable reaction.

Ichigo was the exception to their tolerance for the strange. There was something about him that set off both animals, riled their protective instincts and it wasn’t the scowl he’d never really outgrown. At first, Rukia thought it was the Hollow within him, but when they failed to treat Nel-chan, a powerful, presumably dangerous Arrancar, with the same sort of hostility, she discarded that theory.

“Hey, can I get some help here?” she heard Ichigo call down to her and she sighed once more. Catching the eldest boy’s eyes, Rukia cleared her throat.

“Tsukishima-san, can you please return the dogs to the kennel? I’m sure my husband will get more work done if they aren’t trying to eat him.”

“Kurosaki-san! We’re sorry! I… uh… I left the lock undone and they got out. Please don’t tell ‘ka-san!” Ginjou begged, finally getting a grip on Tadashi, while Moe unsuccessfully made a grab for the Jun’s collar. “Darn it! Sit, Jun!”

She wanted to roll her eyes, really, but refrained. She’d never had a ‘pet’ as a child. The dogs in the Inuzuri were competitors for the scraps she and Renji had scrounged. Sharing those meager gleanings with the strays that gave that District its nickname hadn’t been something her hungry, younger self would have contemplated. Still, she _had_ learned how to deal with them using a few special tactics, which she employed now.

“JUN!! TADASHI!! SIT!!” she roared out in a voice much too large for her body. Both dogs immediately ceased their wiggling and stared at her attentively while she fished a mochi filled with red bean paste out of her dress pocket. Two pairs of eyes followed her hand as she broke the small sweet, a leftover bit of dessert from lunch, into halves. They licked their chops and when their hindquarters hit the dirt, she moved in and gave the children orders.

“Take them back to the kennel and make sure it’s locked and I _might_ forget to mention this incident to your mother.”

She then offered the mochi pieces to the two sorriest excuses for security dogs she’d ever met. The air of authority she used to reinforce the command wasn’t lost on the wide-eyed kids as they quickly hauled the wayward canines down the hill. Out of the corner of one eye, she also thought she saw Ichigo’s spine straighten out of habit, to her amusement.

“Sorry, Kurosaki-san!” she heard little Moe yell and Rukia wasn’t entirely certain which Kurosaki the apology was for, her or Ichigo. The Shinigami watched them go, waiting to ensure Jun and Tadashi weren’t going to make a break for it and come back to see if she had more mochi.

“Goddammit…” Ichigo swore behind her. When she turned around, she found he’d climbed down from the stack of bags and had retrieved what remained of his T-shirt from the ground. The dogs had ventilated it, giving it three large, new holes. The normal frown on his face deepened into a snarl as he examined the damage.

“Fuck! This was…”

“It was old, Ichigo. That’s why you were wearing it, to do this work.”

“I could have gotten a few more days out of this thing! Now look at it!”

He held it out, thrusting the dog-hair-and-slobber-coated fabric inches from her nose, which Rukia didn’t appreciate. What she did appreciate was the sight of her shirtless husband standing close enough for her to see the sweat that trickled down his torso to disappear below the denim waistband of his jeans. He didn’t seem to realize where her eyes had wandered and she had to prevent them from going any lower. She was trying to make a point, not leer at him. Reaching up to pinch the bridge of her nose, partly out of irritation and partly to hide her flushed cheeks, Rukia tried once more.

“Yuzu-chan told me to tell you not to overdo things.”

At the mention of his younger sister, Ichigo’s temper retreated from the boiling point, as she’d predicted. He still glared at the shirt in disgust, however. Then he tossed it into the nearest bush with some mumbled profanity that didn’t quite make it past his lips, but which Rukia recognized as a probable curse on anything that walked on four legs and ate from a bowl.

“Tell her I’m going to try to finish this today. I’ve removed the worst of the debris for the contractors to haul away once they bring in the heavy equipment, but tearing down this old wall can’t wait, unless she wants a mudslide to hit the west wing the next time it rains. I’ve also divvied up the building materials that were delivered last week. The masons will find things ready to go when they show up to build the forms.”

“Why was your shirt off in the first place, Ichigo?”

“Maybe it’s nice to feel the sun after three months of snow and blizzards. Maybe it gets hot out here after about one-o-clock,” he groused at her, picking up the sledgehammer he’d evidently discarded when the dogs went after him. “Do I need a reason?”

Rukia folded her arms across her chest.

“Yes, if you expect me to put lotion on the sunburn you’re going to get.”

“Fine. Go ask Yuzu-chan if she has any sunscreen and I’ll make sure I put it on.”

As much as Rukia wanted to do the right thing and get the stuff, she was smart enough to know that her husband’s bad mood was only partly due to the unexpected attack of the selectively obedient Dobermans Ishida-san owned. Hesitantly, she walked up to him and placed her hand on his back. Her touch made him stop what he was doing.

“Ichigo, what is it? You’re not usually like this.”

The earned her a bitter, angry laugh.

“Like what?”

“Like… this. Ignoring the rest of us in favour of working alone. You’re not going to finish this tonight… not by yourself.”

“Maybe I feel like tearing something apart right now. Besides, once the wall is down, it’s up to the skilled contractors. If the weather holds, they can come in, built the forms and pour tomorrow.”

“You know Ishida-san won’t bring a work crew on to the property with a house full of guests… especially with the Arrancar here.”

“He can tell them he’s having a week-long cosplay party, like all of the rest of the crazy rich celebrities,” he began, before she interrupted him.

“What did you and Grimmjow talk about last night?”

This time the angry look he gave her was all for her, but she held her ground, until he cursed again and dropped the sledgehammer next to a pile of concrete rubble that had yet to be carted downhill in the wheelbarrow.

“What do you think we talked about, Rukia? What could we possibly have in common?”

“You weren’t this angry when you came to bed last night.”

“I had all last night to think about it.”

“What did you conclude, after you two went for a walk?”

“He really does love her… in as much as an Arrancar can love, I guess.”

“I wonder if Nel would like to hear your take on her capacity for feelings.”

“Are we having an argument, Rukia? Because I think you’re trying to pick one with me and I don’t want to leave this for someone else to finish.”

“No, that’s not why I came up here. I came up here to see how you were doing, since you inhaled lunch and left as if someone had set your pants on fire. Yuzu also said to…”

“Not overdo it, yeah, I heard.”

“Oh, and ‘Thank you, honey, for calling off the dogs. I _really_ appreciate it,’” she added sarcastically. Rukia didn’t like this sullen side of her husband and when it chose to make an appearance, her usual manner of heading it off involved calling him on his mulish behaviour.

“Stupid mongrels. Why am _I_ the only one they seem to want to tear apart?”

“Maybe because they haven’t met Renji or Grimmjow yet?”

The silence between them lengthened, until she heard a snicker, which then rolled into real laughter. Ichigo’s hands when to his thighs as he took a seat on the mound of dirty concrete chunks and ran his hands through his sweat-soaked hair.

“Shit… Has anyone warned them?”

“I’m not sure if Nel’s mentioned them to Renji or not. Grimmjow…”

“I’d pay to see them tree him, just for a few minutes. Whatever’s in my wallet right now, I’d fork it over to have them run him up the biggest apple tree in the orchard… except I need that for a new shirt.”

“I don’t think little Ginjou will forget to lock the kennel any time soon. I’m not sure what constitutes a ‘time out’ at Majordomo Tsukishima’s house, but from what I’ve overheard, it involves a box.”

“Usually it’s a corner. That’s what Mom did with us if we misbehaved,” Ichigo said, staring at her feet, rather than meeting her eyes. He could dislike the dogs all he wanted, but she didn’t want him resenting Ginjou and Moe for an honest mistake.

“They seem like good children, Ichigo, even if they are a little forgetful.”

“It isn’t them. They’re only boys. I can remember being just as afraid of getting into trouble with my Mom as they are with theirs… though Tsukishima-san _is_ pretty scary, when you think about it.”

“Only if she doesn’t like you. Renji _really_ needs to make things up to her,” she replied, and Ichigo let out a snort when she mentioned the redhead.

“At least he’s consistent with his first impressions. I wanted to kick his ass when I met him too.”

“Are you going to be okay with working with Grimmjow?”

“What about you and Szayel?” Ichigo countered and Rukia bared her teeth.

“That’s not fair. I asked you first.”

Her husband’s shoulders relaxed, though he added resignation to the mix of emotions in his voice.

“Fine. The answer is yes. It isn’t as if I have much of a choice at this point.”

“So again, do you really think he loves her? He’s not just saying it?”

“Yeah, I do. It’s the way he said it, the look in his eyes… it’s like he’s on the edge of a breakdown when he talks about Karin. Kami, I’m having a hard enough time thinking about Karin as a _mother_ , let alone wanting to think about her and Grimmjow in that way.”

She could sympathize. Finding out about Ajuga, after nine long years of silence between the two siblings, had jolted Ichigo badly and the second stab had come when those around them, including Yoruichi, Hiyori, Hachi and Nel, had confessed to knowing about the girl. Maybe her husband’s need for space was the result of more than a few people neglecting to tell him the whole truth, but after his Hollow had taken over during what was supposed to be a mission to liberate both of Ichigo’s sisters and any unclaimed friends they could find, no one had wanted to hand Ichigo a reason to make a second attempt at dragging Karin back from the Soul Society.

At least they now knew why she’d refused to come with them.

“It’s just a little ironic, I guess. Here I am pissed at Grimmjow, the Aspect of fucking Destruction, for taking my baby sister away, when I’ve done the same damn thing to Byakuya. He’s going to be _thrilled_ when he finds out we’re related.”

His sardonic comment rendered Rukia speechless, stunned that he would consider their union in that way. Her hands balled into fists, nails cutting into her palms and the metal of the ring she wore rubbed against the sword calluses on them.

“That’s… that’s _entirely_ different, Ichigo, and you know it! You asked and I said yes and that’s all there is to it for us. No one forced me to marry you!”

“Karin went to him willingly too. Yuzu told us, but I never really believed her until last night.”

Ichigo let out a long breath.

“Sometimes I wonder, Rukia, whether Byakuya will spend as much time hating my guts for becoming your lover and then your husband as I spent hating Grimmjow for Claiming my sister. For all he knows, _I_ _’_ _m_ more dangerous to you than the Sixth ever was to Karin.”

At that, she reached up and pinched the bridge of her nose, fed up with this self-flagellation.

“Look, about Grimmjow… I don’t think your fears were misplaced, exactly. Remember what he did to me when I turned his fraccion into an ice pop?” She gritted her teeth and her frown deepened. “It’s not the same, Ichigo. I was a grown woman when I met you and I was also a grown woman on that day in Yokohama… the first time we, well… and damn it all, I’m not some little girl you need to fret over and protect, even from _him_!”

Ichigo’s expression darkened at the mention of his Hollow.

“Yet another bastard I’d like beat into the ground with a rusty rake. You should hear his mouth sometimes. Better yet, I’d rather you didn’t hear the crap he spouts. You might decide to gut us.”

Rukia bit her lip. She had, in fact, heard his Hollow’s voice, though she disliked conversing with the thing that shared his skull. That part of Ichigo’s soul had become increasingly vocal and annoying since they’d made things official and each time it spoke to her, the subject was the same.

Would it be ‘cheating’ if she allowed a disparate entity that shared the same body to crawl between her legs and ‘rock her world,’ even if it was part and parcel of the man she’d gladly married? A portion of her thought it would be worse than cheating and she had no desire to let the Vasto Lorde that comprised the other half of Ichigo’s power to exert control over her in the form of a Claim. After witnessing Renji’s abrupt departure from the kitchen table the other night, she knew she didn’t want anyone, not even Ichigo, to direct her actions without her consent.

Another, separate part of her wanted to call the thing’s bluff, to see exactly _how_ accurate all of its wheedling promises were with regard to ‘making her scream.’

That, in turn, made her reflect on the man sitting before her. Ichigo had placed both hands on the end of the sledgehammer’s handle and his forehead rested on the right one, his posture radiating all kinds of unhappiness. It also allowed her to see the muscles in his shoulders as they hunched over. The sporadic manual labor he’d engaged in for fifteen years, as well as the training he’d done with the rest of the Escapees when time and space allowed had left him with a lean, sculpted body taller and broader than the one he’d worn as a boy. He sported more scars as well, including the angry red line on his lower right abdomen, just visible above his jeans’ waistband.

She hated it. It was a reminder of how close they’d come to losing him to a burst appendix, a problem that came out of nowhere. It was evidence of his mortality and that he was still subject to the rules that governed souls tied to human bodies. It chilled her and made her appreciate him all the more.

_Would he have looked like this if he_ _’_ _d had a chance to live out a normal life, if he_ _’_ _d been able to go to college or work for some company in a cubicle? I suppose we_ _’_ _ll never really know._

Then again, given what they’d found out from Ishida Ryuuken, the odds of Ichigo _ever_ having what one might consider a ‘normal’ life had been slim from the beginning. She’d simply been the catalyst for the change. If it wasn’t her, something else might have awakened the power within him. What Rukia _did_ know was that she’d chosen to share whatever kind of life Ichigo carved for himself with him and that she had no regrets about accepting his proposal.

The sun had crept westward since the lunch hour and they found themselves suddenly standing in the shade as the hillside cast a shadow over the path. It allowed her to see what sort of sunburn her husband had managed to earn for his carelessness. After a few moments of critical examination, Rukia could tell it was too late for sunblock. He’d be hurting in a few hours if she didn’t get him inside and out of the light. She moved to stand directly in front of him, reached down and wrapped one small hand around as much of his bicep as she could manage. Brown eyes looked up at her quizzically.

“You’re burnt. You need to come inside.”

“I had a break at lunch and I’m almost…”

“…parboiled, like a shrimp turned pink in broth. Ishida-san’s at the hospital, but I think we can both guess what he’d tell you to do for it.”

Ichigo frowned as she rested one of her cool hands on his shoulders and then winced as the difference in temperature between her skin and his became apparent.

“Shit,” he hissed and her expression switched to a familiar, wifely ‘told you so,’ before she made him look at her.

“Right, so let’s put down the hammer and go inside. You’re officially off the clock.”

“Fantastic,” he muttered and Rukia ‘tsk-ed’ at him, then tugged on his shaggy orange bangs. His hair was getting too long again and she’d have to ask Hachi to trim it, as neither she nor Nel knew how to cut hair and only a fool would allow Yachiru or Hiyori near his or her head with a pair of scissors.

“There _is_ an upside.”

He winced as he looked down, as if seeing his chest for the first time.

“What’s that?”

“I might be able to fix _this_ ,” she said as she tapped his shoulder delicately, “with some aloe gel and Kido, in the privacy of _our_ room. Are you willing to come with me or are you going to spend your energy on a wall that’s going to fall apart anyway?”

Maybe it was the combination of standing close to him and breathing in the scent of the shampoo he used every morning, the underlying smell of male sweat and musk mixed with the faint whiff of the laundry detergent that clung to his clothing. Maybe she’d been thinking a little too much about the last time she’d spoken with his Hollow, when the golden-eyed monster had stuck his tongue out at her and informed her he could breathe through his ears for hours on end. Normally, she’d chide Ichigo for leaving work unfinished, but what ailed him wouldn’t be solved, in the long run, by working himself ragged on demolition.

No, she had a better method of doing that. He had no chance to gainsay Rukia when she pulled his chin a smidgen higher and dropped a kiss on his startled mouth. Drawing back, she saw he seemed very surprised, pleased and just a little wary of her. Then he reached up with both hands and dragged her back down for a far more thorough, open-mouthed exploration.

“Who has the sunburn now?” he murmured.

“Baka!” she snapped, but her retort contained a different kind of heat, as did her cheeks. Ichigo made a rude sound, but got to his feet. Leaning the sledgehammer against the pile of broken concrete he grasped her hand and began walking briskly back down the path, tugging her roughly behind him, in much the same way the boys had dragged off the dogs. Rukia scowled at his sudden change in mood, though she _had_ been the one to suggest, nay, encourage him and she wasn’t going beg off now.

Yuzu, for once, wasn’t in the kitchen and Rukia considered it a good sign as she slipped off her shoes at the back door, dropping them next to Ichigo’s significantly dirtier work boots. She quickly opened the cupboard containing medical supplies such as a first aid kit among other thing and swiped the extra bottle of burn gel she knew Yuzu kept on hand to treat accidental scalding. Then she ‘meeped’ as Ichigo picked her up bottle and all, and carried her out into the thankfully empty hallway. The rest of the trip to their guestroom was a blur and he soon deposited her on the bed. Her slight weight bounced as her body made contact with the mattress.

He disappeared into the small en suite bath, leaving her a bit disoriented. Rukia heard the shower start and a few muffled curses that let her know he’d turned the water on the coldest setting. That would take the heat from the sunburn on his torso and she could probably manage the rest… if it didn’t give him hypothermia first. Five minutes later, Ichigo wandered out of the shower, teeth chattering and with a towel draped around his hips and another around his shoulders. Rukia swallowed and indicated that he ought to lie down on his stomach and let her get to work.

“It’s too damned early in the year for sunburns,” he grumbled as he rubbed his head with terrycloth and made to toss it back into the bathroom. She gave him a pointed look and he stopped, then took a few steps back and hung it up. Walking back to the bed, he lay down on the blanket and buried his face in his folded arms. Rukia quickly popped the cap of the aloe gel and began smoothing it over his shoulders and down his back, taking a few minutes just to enjoy the feel of him beneath her fingertips. He’d always been on the lean side, but years of manual labor had added about thirty pounds of muscle to his frame.

To think, it was all hers, every last inch if it.

His skin drank in the gel and she debated whether to add more to his back before switching to Kido. Normally, she’d be helpless to heal his material body with it, since her salvaged gigai didn’t allow for its use. However, within the confines of the Quincy fortress, she didn’t need her gigai to interact with him, which made things like this _so_ much easier. There were a lot of things she enjoyed about the Ishida Estate, but her favourite thing by far was touching Ichigo with her real hands, whenever she wanted, which was why she’d given him grief about the towel.

“I don’t want to make the staff’s job harder. I also don’t want you to get too comfortable with having a bathroom of our own just yet. We might have to go back to sharing one with a lot of other people,” she chided him. Her husband turned his head to the side as her small fingers slathered additional aloe to the small of his back.

“Rukia, you know as well as I that this is the last move we’re going to make. That was decided when Yoruichi brought Grimmjow and the others here from the Royal Realm. We’re on a deadline now. It’s either going to be us or Aizen, depending on what Szayel can find. Besides, I can’t see Yuzu allowing us to leave with Nel and the baby, even if Renji hadn’t shown up. She’d insist that they stay and I can’t blame her.”

Rukia listened to her husband’s solemn words and then filled her hands with enough Kido to mitigate the damage to his epidermis. She worked her way from the back of his neck to the line at his hips where the pink ended and the white began.

“She’d be right. So this is our last stand. I expected it to happen sooner than this.”

The body beneath her gel-covered hands moved, twisted and Rukia found him staring up at her with one hand behind his head and the other resting on his abdomen. She quickly poured another dollop of gel into her palm and began rubbing it gently into his right bicep. Her husband said nothing as she finished with one arm and started in on the other.

“Hey, midget…”

Her brows knit into a frown when he used her old nickname, the one that reminded her of her tiny stature. Thanks to recent, regular and decent meals courtesy of Yuzu, Rukia had discovered the beginnings of a real figure beneath her shihakusho. While she’d never be as lush as Orihime-chan, Nel-chan or Matsumoto-Fukutaichou, the small amount of extra padding on her hips and in her bust had helped her look less like a scrawny pre-teen girl. It was a goad and she knew it.

“What is it?” she asked, just before he pulled her over him with the arm she hadn’t finished. Scrambling upright, she blushed to find she was perched on his stomach, knees around his waist with her goopy hands pressed against his chest. Unfazed, Rukia took advantage of the position to pour Kido and aloe gel in equal measures over the fool she’d married. To his credit, his serious expression never wavered as he reached up and brushed dark strands of hair away from her forehead and out of her eyes.

“We were going to have to stop running eventually Rukia and I like our chances much more than I did a week ago. This time we have a real chance and I’m not going to let it go to waste. I have to get used to Grimmjow and Kami help your brother, he’ll have to get used to me.”

“Ah, but will you be able to get used to my adoptive third cousins, my great-aunts and uncles and assorted relations? They’re intimidating.”

“Fine, I think, as long as you don’t tell them that you lived in my closet for over a month when I was fifteen.”

“I much prefer sharing a bed than sharing a closet.”

“Glad we agree on something.”

His hands slid up her bare legs, until they encountered her underwear. Leaving the garment alone, he sat up and his fingers made her squirm as they glided along her ribs. Ichigo pushed the dress she wore over her head and tossed it to the side, a slow smile spreading across his face when he took in her near nakedness. One of the advantages of being small busted, even with a few new curves, was that one could go without the torture device known as a brassiere. Bindings were fine while she was in uniform, but support had never been an absolute necessity. That meant one less layer between her flesh and his hands.

What her breasts lacked in size they made up for in sensitivity. Rukia closed her eyes and let her head fall back the moment she felt Ichigo’s tongue and teeth latch on to a nipple while he rolled the other between his thumb and forefinger. The twin sensations shot straight to her groin and she writhed against the hard, towel-covered length she felt growing beneath her.

“I should finish healing you,” she gasped, when the hand that wasn’t busy with her breast snaked underneath the edge of her panties, pulling the thin cotton fabric to the side. His fingertips immediately started toying with her exposed sex. Little sparks of color went off behind her eyelids at each stroke of her clit. Rukia’s breathing grew ragged the longer he teased her. His mouth left her nipple long enough to utter two words:

“Later. Nightstand.”

He gently bit down again, which did nothing to help her get to the drawer he wanted her to open.

“Ichigo…” she warned and he must have realized that he’d asked her to be in two places at once, because he released her. She proceeded to scoot up and over, reaching for the drawer handle, and didn’t sense him lying back until his breath trailed down her abdomen and his fingers hooked either side of the waistband of her cotton panties. Her underwear joined her dress and with the drawer only half open, Rukia moaned as this tongue began to explore her from below.

He took his time doing it too and she soon found her hips moving in synch with every lick and thrust. Large hands cradled her bottom, thumbs spreading her wide and making it easier for his talented mouth to ravish her. It took every ounce of willpower she had to root through the drawer and find what she needed, when what she wanted to do was grab the headboard and ride his tongue. _This_ was the Ichigo that made her stomach flutter at the strangest of times, the one with the hooded brown eyes, flushed cheeks and a desire to toss aside his decorum once the door to their bedroom was locked. Intimacy was difficult when sharing cramped, substandard living quarters with six other people and she didn’t want to take the luxury of a room all to themselves for granted.

She was so close and the only thing that kept her from unraveling completely and cumming was the sharp edge of the packet in her hand, digging into her palm. It was a discordant note and served to remind her that she was neglecting him. Rukia tore it open with shaky fingers and arched her back, fumbling behind her to try to find the towel and get at what lay underneath it.

It required a decent stretch and she heard her spine pop, but her dexterity served her well when her fingers found the towel and dragged it off her husband and the bed itself. Rukia bit down on her lip as her clit became Ichigo’s next target, only to feel him falter when she finally grasped him in one hand and placed the condom over him with the other. Trying to do this with both hands behind her back wasn’t easy, but with determination, anything was possible. Once she’d unrolled it completely, she held his cock by the base, feeling it twitch in her hands. The urge to be filled was overwhelming.

Ichigo’s mouth left her, just as she was about to tip over that elusive edge and a few seconds later, she was in his lap. He sat with bent legs in the middle of the bed, with her straddling him and the lips that had had made such short work of her were now against her throat. He said nothing, but the solid length wedged against her belly told her what she needed to know. Her hands migrated to his shoulder and she pressed down, lifting her hips and letting him position her as he liked. The thick head of his cock slid between Rukia’s slippery-wet inner lips and she lowered herself, taking it in as gradually as she could. Despite the fact the condom was pre-lubricated, she had to work to get him into her and she knew from experience that they would both last longer if she slowed this down. His cock stretched her nearly past the point of comfort. The faint ache created as his girth was like a spice added to a favorite dish, making it that much more interesting, until she felt her bottom come into contact with the tops of his thighs and the tawny curls that surrounded his manhood brushed her already swollen clit.

They stayed like that for a moment, adjusting to one another, until her husband sat back against the pillows stacked against the headboard and uncurled his legs, allowing her knees to reach the bedspread. That gave her the leverage she needed. Biting her lower lip, she rose and fell once, then twice.

“Oh Rukia, that’s… are you alright?”

His palms cupped her bottom, moving in circles over the skin there and warming it.

“I should ask you that. How is your back?” she whispered back, her voice thick. He wasn’t anywhere near coming; she could tell from his breathing and the way he held himself. The tang of strawberry-flavored lube, the cool green scent of the gel she’d rubbed into his skin and a fresh round of sweat at his temples mixed with the faint musk clinging to his lips into a heady mix.

“No pain?”

“None. Kami, please… move!”

“Hmph. Making me do all of the work,” she murmured without resentment as his needy fingers dug into her ass and stayed there. Rukia lifted her hips again, her thighs working and just to make her point, clenched on the downward motion, until he filled her completely. Then she found a rhythm that she enjoyed and which made the man beneath her tremble like a leaf caught in a breeze. Ichigo was content to relinquish control and let her lead. He was always so careful of her, despite Rukia’s protests that he didn’t need to worry about breaking her.

Her best efforts to prolong things came to naught when his hands clenched her hips and slammed her down on him harder than she expected. He hit her cervix at the same time he hit her clit and that was her undoing. Rukia came, fighting to contain the scream that wanted to escape her mouth. Her husband quickly swallowed it and wrapped both arms around her to hold her still. Four quick, deep thrusts from below and he groaned. Even with the layer of latex between them, she could tell he’d joined her by the heavy pulsing against her quaking walls.

She heard her name murmured reverently against her collarbone and dipped her head to kiss the one that held her while they gradually came down from their respective, mutual climax.

“I smell like aloe,’ she complained, to which he laughed and shrugged. Raising his head, he caught her lips in a swift, sweet and carefully untangled their limbs. The condom went into the trash can beneath the nightstand and while he caught his breath and she tried to get her heart rate under control, Ichigo rolled to his side and pulled her snugly against him.

“You smell just fine. Thank you, Rukia.”

She wasn’t entirely sure if he was grateful for the sex they’d just enjoyed or her treatment of his sunburn or smoothing more intangible, but she was too relaxed to care about the details. Hopefully, he’d let go of some of the rage at Grimmjow he’d carefully nurtured over the years.

“You need to talk to Renji,” Rukia heard him whisper soothingly against the back of her neck. “Work out whatever’s broken between you two… and don’t make another try for Szayel.”

She bristled a bit, but when his arms tightened around her, she knew that arguing about this would only dispel the peaceful, languid feeling between them. Rukia wanted it to last a little while before they reverted to their normal ‘back and forth’.

“I’ll do it if you make Grimmjow help you finish tearing down that wall. I’m sure he needs the distraction more than you right now.”

Perhaps it was best that they’d ended up together. She couldn’t picture anyone else putting up with her brusqueness and her willingness to go toe-to-toe in an argument. Sometimes it seemed as if they’d been engaged in a very long, drawn-out quarrel since the day they’d met, interspersed with short periods of relative peace and occasional accord. He’d taken so many blows over the last fifteen years, all because of things that were, for the most part, beyond his control and she’d had the difficult job of trying to help him solder the cracks back together. Ichigo had done the same for her, especially on the awful day they’d learned about Zabimaru’s destruction and what it had done to her oldest and best friend. She’d screamed and wept and beat on his chest and cried herself to sleep while he’d held her. He’d accepted her abuse with a stony face and Rukia was certain she’d dented him in a few places before her rage and grief over Renji’s shattered soul had petered out. They hadn’t even been ‘together’ at that point, but he’d been the one she’d gone to for consolation.

_Maybe Yuzu was right about there being a mended lid for every cracked pot,_ she thought and relaxed into his embrace. A short nap would do them both good. He could see to the wall tomorrow with the Espada who now numbered as a member of the family and she’d confront her restored friend about his new-found ability to forgive what she considered an unforgivable, monstrous crime. Renji had never been the sort to take a hit without seeking to answer it with one of his own.

“Fine, midget…”

Ichigo breathed the words into her ear and sounded on the verge of dropping off. The staff had already seen to the guest bedrooms and baths, so they wouldn’t have to worry about being interrupted while dozing. Ichigo might even be up for a second round when he woke later, a thoroughly enjoyable possibility and it would allow her to distract him from what was coming, if only for a little while. For all their individual imperfections, they created a solid vessel when they came together, one that even Ichigo’s lascivious Hollow couldn’t shake.

One of his hands reached around and found a resting place over her left breast, palming it as the rise and fall of his chest slowed and Rukia reached up to cover it with her smaller fingers.

The wall, Renji, Grimmjow, and everything else could wait.


	68. Security

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aizen put the final forty nails in the coffin of Starrk's loyalty.

The last few days had been absolute hell on Hitsugaya Toshiro’s blood pressure and if things kept going the way they were, there would be little relief in sight. Finding out there was an _actual_ coup in the works as opposed to the official ‘story’ regarding Grimmjow and Szayel hadn’t helped matters.

He had been stunned when Starrk, Ukitake Jushiro, and Lilynette showed up the previous evening to learn just how deeply Harribel was involved in it. While he’d been initially angry that she’d kept something like this from him, he had to admit that her reasons for doing so were sound, especially in the wake of what he’d learned had really happened in the Royal Realm. Toshiro could forgive her for her secretiveness, knowing that she was finally willing to take direct action against Aizen. Her girls were behind the decision and supported both it and their Mistress, especially when the three learned of the threat Aizen posed to Hana.

It had been surprising to learn about Hana’s heritage, but learning of Karin’s family tree had left him at a loss for words, especially when he found out he’d served as the Spirit King’s son’s 3rd Seat for all those years. Harribel had helped steady him, the newfound knowledge about what had happened to his former Taichou setting his head spinning. He disliked sake, but that news made him down a few cups of it, to Harribel and her girls’ disquiet.

Knowing Ulquiorra would be in on the coup helped, and Lilynette’s description of the Fourth’s reaction to the news was priceless. It was a relief to learn the ‘traitors,’ including his 7th Seat, were for the most part safe and sound, though the idea of Karin in Aizen’s hands made him sick. Harribel had all but wrapped her arms around him from behind to keep him from filling the study with icicles when Starrk brought that up.

Toshiro let out a sigh and he put all thoughts of his fellow conspirators aside. He and the other officers in his Division had a meeting to attend. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t apprehensive, considering Aizen had called it and where it was being held. Rising from his chair and putting the last of his paperwork for the day in order, he made his way out of his office and towards the 3rd Division’s main gate, where the other seated officers and those with Claims had nervously gathered. Their respective Masters were just arriving, apparently deciding to join their pets before going up to the meeting together. No doubt the nervous shinigami had helped draw them here, especially the two with pregnant females.

“Taichou!”

They saluted him smartly in unison as he arrived, even the one with her Arrancar Master practically glued to her back with his hands roaming over her stomach. She elbowed him in the side and he pouted, but the lecher stepped back a little.

_I_ _’_ _m going to have to have a chat with that one about inappropriate displays of affection while his mate is on duty. He_ _’_ _s getting out of hand._

He inclined his head in their direction and double checked to make certain that all of his top officers were present. They seemed anxious, as was he, but at least Toshiro knew he hid his restlessness better. The young man still found it disconcerting how protective the Arrancar were of their pregnant females and children and wondered how much longer it would be before the other Claimed women in his Division found themselves in the family way. From what he understood of Unohana’s report, it was probably going to be sooner than later.

With the Swarm’s base purged, perhaps they could finally catch up on paperwork and he could see about giving the expectant members of the 3rd Division some maternity leave. Barring that, he could see about putting some ground rules in place where it concerned the hovering Arrancar sires being nuisances. He didn’t mind their presence, as long as they stayed out of the way and let his staff work. A few of them needed a swift kick in the backside and a solid definition of what constituted ‘interference.’ Sitting next to a pregnant mate was one thing. Herding her into the supply closet for a ‘quickie’ was an entirely different matter.

 _I_ _’_ _ll have to have Harribel speak with that pervert Lloydght about that incident,_ he vowed.

“Are we all ready to go?” he asked his second-in-command.

“Yes sir. Um, do you know what this meeting is about?” the young man asked apprehensively.

“I was not informed,” he answered truthfully. “Nor was my Mistress informed before my arrival to work this morning.” He turned his attention towards the assembled Arrancar, giving one particular blond male the evil eye. “Have any of you heard anything relevant about this meeting?”

He got series of negative responses and noticed that, like his Shinigami, even they seemed a bit nervous. Toshiro’s attention was pulled to the main gateway as Harribel arrived with her three fraccion. As usual, she drew a fair amount of attention, more so now that her face could be seen in its entirety. He glared and flared his reiatsu, chilling the air and reminding his men, in a not-too-subtle way, not to ogle what was his.

_‘_ _Possessive pussy-whipped boy.’_

_‘_ _Shut up. That is my child in her womb,_ _’_ he silently told Hyorinmaru. The ice dragon hissed, though he detected more than just the usual derisiveness at his choice of life-partners.

_‘_ _So it is, boy, more than you think. It_ _’_ _s also a collar and chain. Be careful that the weight of it doesn_ _’_ _t drag you to your death._ _’_

“You are ready?”

She ignored the way those not required to go to the meeting quickly scurried away.

“Yes,” he answered, taking his place by her side and frowning. “I wonder what he has planned.”

“I’ve no idea, but I would advise not being late.”

The two of them led the odd precession to the only place in the Seireitei truly large enough to hold so many people, the Sōkyoku Hill. They were joined by others as they made the long climb towards the meeting. The Arrancar with pets who were off duty today and the very few that either had civilians Claimed or no pet at all also joined them, which increased Toshiro’s nervousness.

The conversation was hesitant at first, but it gradually became more open as people gathered. There were a lot of theories being tossed around, however. Some of them were not pleasant, such as the possibility of being forced to give back their Zanpakuto now that the War with the Swarm was over. Toshiro found that one highly unlikely, for there would be no reason for everyone to attend something like that, and it would only affect the Shinigami. Others whispered about the possibility of more traitors, or perhaps that the Sixth and the Seventh Espada had been captured. Sōkyoku Hill was, after all, the old execution grounds…

He hadn’t realized how much the whispered speculations bothered him until he felt a gentle hand rest on his shoulder and fingers stroke the back of neck. Glancing to his side, he sent Harribel a grateful look. Their bond had tipped her off to his unrest. When he’d wrestled his worry back into submission, they continued to walk to the meeting side by side, her presence keeping him at ease, or at least, dispelling the worst of his jitters.

They arrived in short order. Aizen wasn’t there yet, but someone had set up a long, narrow platform with steps leading up to it. It seemed like a simple stage much larger than necessary for an execution so he doubted that was its purpose. The officers and Arrancar milled about, keeping loosely to their Divisions as they awaited ‘Kami.’ He spotted Unohana as the woman arrived with her own group of 4th Division officers and the very few Claimed members of her own Division. There was a sad look on her face; she evidently knew something, and he wasn’t the only one to realize it.

Jushiro and Nanao, escorted by Starrk and Lilynette, approached her. Toshiro thought about going over as well, but Unohana shook her head to answer the question Jushiro had asked, which suggested to him that she was not permitted to say anything.

“This is killing me,” Mila Rose complained and folded her arms across her chest. Sung Sun made a noise that might have been a muffled ‘yes’ from behind her sleeve, though her eyes were fixated on the 4th Division’s officers and Unohana.

“It is unpleasant…”

“Do you think this has anything to do with the traitors?” Apachi whispered the question to her mistress, but the other two women picked up on it as easily as Toshiro and stiffened along with him.

“It _is_ a possibility,” Harribel answered in an equally low-pitched voice, “but an unlikely one. Karin and Hana are the only ‘officers’ missing and Aizen did not name either of them as having taken part in the attempted coup. While the Seventh _technically_ heads his Division, with his mate serving as his ‘Fukutaichou,’ neither title is ‘official,’ since one is an Espada and the other is his Claimed pet. The top officer there would be that Division’s 3rd Seat. No… this is about something else. I suspect he will do something that will make our _endeavor_ more difficult.”

Her line of logic made sense. However, Toshiro still wasn’t entirely certain that the traitors’ defection wouldn’t come back to bite the rest of them somehow. His uneasiness about it grew and he had to fight to keep it in check lest it distract Harribel at a point where both of them would need to be on their toes.

“Aizen-kami’s coming,” he growled softly, so that only the four women near him could hear. “Stay sharp.”

Toshiro pointed his chin in Aizen’s direction as the usurper casually approached, Gin trailing behind like a whipped dog. He also ground his molars together as he prepared himself for yet another one of the many humiliations heaped upon the Claimed Shinigami. The crowd went silent and bowed. While the Arrancar went to one knee, Aizen required their pets kneel on all fours on the ground, their faces towards the earth. The only exceptions allowed were those whose pregnant bellies made such a manoeuvre impossible or dangerous, though Rangiku, Tatsuki and Soi Fon still had to bow their heads in subservience, keeping their eyes glued to the dirt.

Aizen made it to the platform and they rose. The nervous shuffling among the collected officers quickly died down as they waited for him to speak. Aizen greeted the assembly with a benign smile.

“Good evening. I am pleased so many of you are expecting, although my wife laments that you could have spread yourselves out a bit more as far as delivery dates.”

He laughed genially, and most of the Arrancar, and even a few Shinigami, joined in. Slowly, the fearful cloud that hovered over the gathering dissipated when it became apparent that ‘Kami’ was in a reasonably good mood.

“I know some of you will be ready to den up soon in anticipation of the birth of your cubs.” His eyes shifted towards Nnoitra and Tesra. The first appeared indifferent but the second hugged his mate closer. “While I wish I could spare so many of you from your duties, for this is a joyful time indeed, I cannot allow anyone to shirk his or her required responsibilities. Moreover, the Divisions must see to the balance of the Realms now that I and my Espada have vanquished the Swarm and it is a task of paramount importance.”

Aizen raised a hand to stall any objections that might have arisen at his announcement. The Arrancar had shifted restlessly at the news, but they didn’t voice any protests, for Aizen hadn’t denied them just yet. His next words helped to smooth over any ruffled feathers.

“I would not presume to ask you to leave your newborn children unguarded. Moreover, anyone who attacks any of my warriors’ cubs will answer to me personally. However, we can’t entirely foresee _all_ of the dangers that such vulnerable youngsters might encounter, such as those who have decided to forfeit their place of honour as my Espada, or those who have remained at large and refuse to become a part of my regime.”

Toshiro did his level best to keep his rage under control as Aizen neatly packaged Grimmjow, Szayel and Ajuga, as well as anyone associated with them, as potential threats to the Arrancar’s young. It was one thing to abandon Aizen, or even stage a revolt against him, but framing them as a direct threat to children of the Espada and the Numeros alike couldn’t be good. It would give the lower-ranking Arrancar more reason to try for any of them should they try to make it back to the Seireitei, on the pretext of protecting their families.

 _Clever bastard,_ he conceded. _They_ _’_ _ll fight all the harder if they think the Sixth and the Seventh, or the Escapees, are a menace._

“Therefore, I have given the matter some thought and I believe I have found a solution. This solution will also, conveniently, serve as a reward for those who have served me well in the past, supporting both my Ascension and assisting in the destruction of the Swarm.”

A few hands went up, despite his earlier warning and ‘Kami’ frowned at those who had the temerity to want to dig deeper on that subject.

“Please wait until I finish my speech before asking questions.”

This time his words were accompanied by a flash of his power. Toshiro shivered as the pressure washed over him, and hands quickly dropped. It was just as well, as the young Taichou knew that Aizen would get to the meat of the speech shortly.

“After the betrayal of an acting Fukutaichou and two of my former Espada, I question the loyalty of those under my command, especially those that worked for, or with, the traitors.”

Toshiro shot a worried look towards the 5th Division. Nanao had gone a bit pale, as had the rest of her officers. Starrk took a step closer to the woman, and she seemed to relax slightly. The smaller group of scientists from the Science and Research Division also looked a little green around the gills.

“My concerns about the trustworthiness of my officers dovetail neatly with yours. Therefore, I have decided, after great deliberation, to require the top ten officers of each Division to be Claimed. Those who are not Claimed will be stripped of their rank. Should they desire to keep their posts, they will submit themselves to the Arrancar who selects them. As for my Arrancar, I hereby increase your allotted Claims from one to two, whereas my Espada, should they desire more, may now take three pets instead of being restricted to two.”

The announcement caused an absolute uproar. There were excited exclamations from the Arrancar and dismayed expressions of fear and disbelief from the Shinigami, especially among those who weren’t Claimed. This was certainly not a reward for _them_ and they had done a fair amount of the fighting themselves.

“Aizen-kami,” Starrk called out, not bothering to raise his hand. All eyes landed on the male half of the Primera, who regarded Aizen with a deep frown on his face.

“Yes?”

“Nanao is my fraccion and she has served me well. I have no desire to give her up. However, there is a strong chance she will not survive should I Claim her, in accordance with your instructions.”

Aizen turned those brown eyes of his fully on Starrk and Toshiro watched as Aizen’s bland smile, meant for pleasing a crowd, took on a sharper edge. His eyes narrowed a fraction and while he didn’t actually appear to be smirking outright, the 3rd Division’s Taichou could almost smell the satisfaction as it rolled off of the man on the platform. That smugness increased as what little color there had been on Starrk’s face drained away.

“I am sure you can resolve this on your own, First. If you are so concerned over the difference in your relative power, I am certain that any of the others closer to her in strength would be willing to keep her Claim for you, much the way Ggio held Soi Fon for Barragan.”

With that, Aizen summarily dismissed the concerns of one of his strongest Espada.

Starrk almost looked like he was going to say more, he was definitely not pleased with the answer if he read him right, but Harribel spoke up next. Toshiro almost believed she did so to prevent Starrk from doing or saying something rash.

“What of Hana? She is an officer of the 3rd Division and my fraccion, and yet, she is away on the mission you assigned her.”

Toshiro wanted to bite his lip as Harribel threw the lie Aizen had told her about Hana’s whereabouts on the eve of the celebration back in his face. Both he and his mate knew it for what it was the moment he’d uttered it but had no idea what was really going on with the girl. It had been a relief to hear the real story yesterday evening, to know Hana was fine and safe in the hands of the Escapees… as long as she remained out of sight in the Living World. Yet there was always the chance an Arrancar patrol could run into her. Better to parrot back Aizen’s falsehood and let him think he’d fooled them while they covered their bases.

“Do you desire her Claim?” Aizen asked the blond, sounding almost bored now.

“I do, and yet I do not want another to assume that he or she can take one of my girls as theirs if they encounter her before I do, simply because she is a Shinigami and not an Arrancar.”

“Then I expect you to do so when she returns. As she is one of your fraccion, it is your right. Is that clear?” Aizen told the assembled Numeros. The rest of them took one look at Harribel and almost as one, nodded vigorously, especially when they saw the equally cold looks on the faces the Trés Bestias.

 _Well that is a relief,_ Toshiro thought. Hana would be safe from the others, at least for now. Unfortunately, that still left a few of his other officers up for grabs. All he could think about was the free-for-all of murder and rape that occurred when Aizen had taken the Throne.

Aizen clasped his hands behind his back and surveyed the crowd before him before continuing.

“Now, before you all go wild, I have a few rules that will accompany this expansion. The officers have important duties, to me and to their respective Divisions. Due to the battles with the Swarm, the Shinigami are considerably behind in their work balancing souls. As such, I will not allow them to be distracted, nor come to any harm that will impede their ability to perform those duties. Peace and order have descended upon our city once more, and I desire to keep it that way. Thus, I have instructed my wife to give me the medical records she and her Division officers have meticulously kept on all of her patients. Included in those records are the reports that give an accounting of the health of every one of your pets, be they current or former, be they Shinigami or civilian.”

Toshiro heard some ugly muttering crop up here and there, but a gesture from Aizen silenced it, as did the disappearing act his smile pulled.

“Those who have taken good care of their pets will be permitted to pick first, starting with my Espada, then their fraccion, and so forth. Afterwards, those of you with children on the way that don’t meet the first tier will be permitted to pick new pets, followed by those who are not expecting. Today, all officers will need to have a new Master or Mistress, chosen before sundown, or resign their posts. After that, the next tier will have five days to choose new pets, and so forth. As before, there will be no fighting over Claiming rights. I will not bother reminding you what happens to those that indulge in such things,” he stated harshly.

The crowd shifted restlessly, but otherwise everyone remained relatively subdued. The mixture of fear, excitement, dread and the unhappiness from the majority of the Shinigami seemed to charge the very air with a kind of twisted tense electricity. Toshiro swore he could taste it if he inhaled through his mouth.

Harribel had been right. Aizen was swiftly moving to consolidate his power, giving his Numeros more privileges and as Starrk had warned them, it would be harder to find a way of defeating Aizen if his Arrancar controlled the most powerful Shinigami in each Division.

“Now then, will all the un-Claimed officers please step forward and line up along the platform please?”

It was an order, not a question and with the purpose of the platform made plain, Toshiro revised his opinion of the structure.

The damned thing was meant to be an auction block.

The significance wasn’t lost on those who slowly filled the wooden stage, especially amongst the more softhearted healers of Unohana’s Division. Their weakness at combat and their empathic natures had served to make them unattractive to Claims before today, but that would not save them anymore. The 4th Division and the seven officers that had called Szayel ‘boss’ took up most of the space on the platform. Nanao’s Division served up six un-Claimed officers, mostly because of its relatively recent formation, while Aizen’s and his own had five and Jushiro’s had three. Nanao, being un-Claimed, walked up with her six, more for moral support he supposed than anything else. Starrk already had her, but she was still technically un-Claimed.

To her credit, she appeared less pasty and frightened than Starrk, who had the demeanour of a man kicked in the gut and presented with two terrible choices. Moreover, to the credit of the current batch of officers, none of them resigned their commissions, despite the anxious expressions on many of their faces. One poor little girl with a 4th Division satchel walked up with noticeable tears in her eyes, her limbs trembling as she made her way up to her fellow healers, but she wouldn’t let them fall.

Unohana handed Aizen a scroll and he rolled it open, revealing the list of Arrancar and the order they would be permitted to select from those on the platform. The only consolation they had was Aizen’s assurance that the least abusive Arrancar would get to choose first, and that he would tolerate no abuse or any removing from their duties. The tyrant had clearly learned from the horror of his Victory and seemed unwilling to make the same mistake twice. While that provided some small relief, it did very little for the prospective pets’ nerves.

“Once you have chosen, you may leave to see to the Claim. I’m certain you will adhere to the rules I’ve made regarding this edict. Coyote Starrk…” Aizen called out and sent another one of those almost-ugly smiles at the Primera, beginning what Toshiro could only describe as a slave giveaway to the least odious of Aizen’s Arrancar troops.

Yammy didn’t complain that Aizen had passed him over. No one with a working set of eyes could mistake his treatment of Byakuya as anything other than horrific. Thankfully, the brute had shown no interest in anyone but his current pet. Even now, it seemed as if Yammy had zoned out, his attention on the man kneeling at his feet rather than the proceedings. In fact, he took the start of the choosing as a dismissal and roughly led Byakuya away. Jushiro would have to fill the man in later over the rest of the events.

 _Thank Kami. By the time he_ _’_ _s allowed to choose someone, let_ _’_ _s hope our allies have a course of action outlined and no one else will have to experience what Kuchiki has endured,_ Toshiro prayed.

“Ise Nanao,” Starrk called back, only now regaining a bit of his color.

Nanao nodded, gave one of her more worried-looking officer’s forearms a supportive squeeze and left the line to rejoin the rumpled, lanky Espada.

So the First would try to Claim his fellow conspirator and fraccion, rather than let another have her. Toshiro set his worry for his colleague aside and forced his attention back to the stage. He wanted to know who his officers ended up with and he couldn’t be sidetracked.

“Tia Harribel?”

Aizen smiled at her and he felt Harribel stir next to him, lifting her chin and answering smoothly, though her choices weren’t much of a surprise to anyone but the poor soul crouched next to a glowering Barragan.

“I hold Toshiro’s Claim and I will hold Soi Fon’s Claim after she gives birth and it is safe for me to take her. I will also take Hana’s Claim upon her return from her mission. As she is one of my fraccion, it is my right to do so, fulfilling my limit.”

“Very well. Ulquiorra Cifer?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Toshiro saw a wild look of hope cross Ggio’s face before Barragan’s Claim made him choke and stare at the ground. Barragan’s lip curled and he openly sneered at the Third. Harribel smirked right back at him, resting her hand on Tiburon’s hilt casually.

No one commented on Barragan’s exclusion, in the same way and for the same reasons Aizen had passed over Yammy. Barragan looked furious about it, but other than his display over Harribel’s assumption of Soi Fon’s Claim, he made no protest. Toshiro wondered if Aizen hadn’t already spoken to the 2nd Espada earlier.

“I have no interested in tra…”

The Fourth paused as Orihime glared at him and immediately changed the wording of his refusal, “…acquiring another,” he finished. Aizen subsequently turned to the Fifth.

“Nnoitra Gilga?”

While Nnoitra’s misogyny was legendary, he still treated his pet much better than either Yammy or Barragan treated theirs. In addition, she was pregnant with twins. Aizen would not want to slight the Espada if there was no reason for it and Rangiku had yet to show up at the 4th Division as a result of abuse from her ‘owner.’ Toshiro still loathed the creature, but this wasn’t, unfortunately, up to him.

“Not interested,” the mantis grunted. “Rangiku’s woman enough for me.”

With his Espada out of the way, Aizen turned to their fraccion, who ranked higher than the Numeros in both power and prestige.

“Mila Rose.”

The dusky-skinned woman pondered the variety in the line of officers for a moment, even tossing a glance Harribel’s way. Toshiro understood her hesitation. With the planned treason, he had to wonder if it was safe to bring others into his mate’s household. Harribel’s girls had never really shown much interest in acquiring their own pets, but now that their mistress was with child, any extra protection they could rope in would be worth it. Tia had also been partaking of her girls considerably less in the last year as her relationship with him grew stronger and closer. Her recent acknowledgement of his status as her ‘mate’ had all but put an end to their play with one another, as the three only really functioned well with each other when their mistress was there as an ice-breaker and a referee for their bed sport.

“Any suggestions, Toshiro?” Mila Rose asked him.

Her request for help from him surprised him at first, but he recovered quickly. Toshiro knew she would prefer a woman and knew her tastes from having had to be a part of those ‘tastes’ for over a decade. While the Third’s fraccion could be irritating, thoughtless, obstinate, argumentative and feather-headed at times, the three were basically good-hearted. In addition, they’d never been violent towards him, nor had he ever seen them raise a fist or a voice towards any of the female Shinigami when they’d come by his Division. He would rather see one of the women in the line paired with any of Harribel’s fraccion over most of the male Arrancar. Doing so would at least spare them the risk of an undesired pregnancy, a real possibility if the current fertility epidemic continued unabated.

He gave her three names, pointing each potential ‘pet’ out to her. After pondering for a moment, Mila Rose chose one of the women, a petite blond that he knew from long association preferred her own gender, and declared she was done. Apachi stepped up next. The brunette let her eyes roam over a number of hopeful-looking men in line before her mouth quirked up and she picked one of the other women Toshiro had named. That, he thought, would at least be two female Shinigami out of reach of potentially abusive male Arrancar. Sung Sun, on the other hand, took them all by surprise when she called out who she wanted immediately after being asked.

“Iemura Yasochika,” she said, with a flutter of her eyelashes.

The 4th Division’s Fukutaichou actually blushed and adjusted his glasses nervously as he stepped out of the line and joined them. Sung Sun did him the courtesy of dropping the sleeve that she normally hid behind to give him a bright smile. Then she wrapped her arms around his neck before drawing him down to whisper something into the bespectacled man’s ear that made him nearly fumble his Zanpakuto from its place on his hip. The choice of such a high-ranking officer caused some muttering among a few of the males with pregnant females, which Sung Sun immediately silenced with a hard, cold look at those doing the complaining. The proprietary hand she placed on the Fukutaichou’s shoulder and the way she all but moulded herself to her choice served to throttle any remaining protests.

Unohana apparently approved of her choice, especially when Sung Sun turned to her and bowed respectfully. Unohana graciously inclined her head and looked kindly on the couple, her permission granted. Aizen raised one of his eyebrows at his wife, but said nothing to countermand Sung Sun’s decision to take Iemura. For once, Toshiro wanted to pat the fraccion on the back for handling the matter with some official decorum, as well as for making a selection that would serve her Mistress well if worse came to worse. With Szayel gone, and with Unohana having duties other than those to her Division, if anything were to go wrong with Harribel’s pregnancy outside of Unohana’s ‘office hours,’ Iemura would be a decent first line of defence.

From a conspiratorial standpoint, her choice was a bit of genius too. Mila Rose had chosen his 3rd Seat and Apache’s belonged to the 4th Division, with Iemura as her superior. They’d have extra hands in both Divisions to carry out any necessary legwork if it came to it. Toshiro also realized that one of the silver linings of Sung Sun’s choice was that _if_ the Shinigami Men’s Society ever started up again, it would do so minus its Vice President’s whining about his perpetual lack of a girlfriend.

“Tesra?”

Nnoitra’s fraccion glanced at his Master.

“Your turn, runt,” the Fifth hooked a thumb in the direction of the platform.

At that, Tesra turned to Tatsuki. The two shared a whispered conversation, before a reluctant Tesra picked the terrified-looking girl from the 4th Division. She left the line, nearly in tears and Tatsuki greeted the poor, trembling thing warmly, pulling the girl into an embrace and speaking soothingly to her. That served to calm her down and Toshiro’s respect for the human woman grew substantially. He would later learn that Tatsuki had been the one to pressure Tesra into taking someone and had picked the gentlest, most retiring healer out of the lot. If it was one thing Toshiro knew, it was that Tesra took excellent care of his mate and that this particular officer was in good hands. He swore he even saw Unohana’s shoulders slump a little in relief and he felt Harribel relax slightly beside him at Tesra’s selection.

Since Ggio was Claimed by Barragan, and therefore unable to cast a Claim of his own, it went to the Numeros after that. Harribel’s fraccion wandered off to talk with their new companions, as did Nnoitra and his group and Ulquiorra with Orihime. Starrk, his face drawn and his eyes shadowed, remained with Jushiro and Nanao, so they could see who would choose the remainder of their officers, and delay the inevitable Claiming that awaited them.

There was a bit of grumbling from the Arrancar over the order, but they kept their squabbling to a minimum in front of Aizen. Thankfully, the rest of the un-Claimed officers in his Division ended up taken by Arrancar he knew to be relatively decent sorts.

He also ended up learning more than he wanted to know about some of his officers, including his Fukutaichou. When Aizen called out Franque Lloydght’s name, the blond Arrancar left the side of Toshiro’s besotted pregnant 11th Seat and actually climbed the platform steps to stand before the 3rd Division’s second highest officer. The young man’s face grew redder and redder as the Arrancar approached, until his cheeks took on the hue of a ripe tomato. It probably didn’t help that the Arrancar’s voice was pitched so that everyone, even those outside of the walls of the Seireitei, could hear what he had to say.

“Michiko-chan tells me you’ve have a crush on me for a while now. Is she right about that, Watanabe-kun?”

When his Fukutaichou’s eyes darted to the planks underfoot and he nodded faintly, Lloydght chuckled in a way that sounded disturbingly like Harribel when something tickled her. The taller Arrancar’s arm then _slithered_ its way around the young man’s waist and he whispered something into the other’s ear that made the Shinigami’s cheeks go purple and his knees tremble.

“I’ll take _good_ care of this one, Kami-sama!” Lloydght called out with a salacious wink and a smirk down at his choice.

The Arrancar’s mate, meanwhile, got a dreamy, giddy expression on her face as she watched her beloved steer his newest acquisition down the steps and over to her. Toshiro reached up and rubbed his forehead, wishing he could ‘un-see’ and ‘un-hear’ the entire exchange, though it _did_ explain the lack of ogling on his Fukutaichou’s part when Harribel and her fraccion had dropped by his Division in the past.

 _I_ _’_ _m going to have to ask Harribel to remind that overly-demonstrative sleaze to have_ both _of my officers at the Division on time and properly dressed for their shifts. Ugh._

After the last officer had been picked, Aizen read the names of those who had five days to pick a second pet, starting tomorrow afternoon so the population could be warned ahead of time before they thought to sound an alarm or call foul on an Arrancar trying to double dip. There was some grumbling over that as well, but no one was stupid enough to truly gripe about it and there was more excitement at getting two pets than there was dissatisfaction. He was left to watch as those Arrancar who had chosen his officers, for good or ill, herded them off to their fates.

Toshiro could only hope that the majority of those who had Claimed their pets from the Science and Research Division’s assortment of weirdoes would let them go about their business, not understanding much of it, and allow Starrk the opportunity to make his overtures to them regarding the Senkaimon monitors. If the nerds that staffed the place hadn’t been ready to throw the Seireitei wide open for the Escapees already, today’s sanctioned enslavement of their top-ranked scientists would serve to fuel their rebellion. It was never wise to enrage a member of the former 12th Division. Only bad things could come of doing so and the young Taichou was just petty enough to hope those bad things would work in the conspirators’ favour.

A warm hand reached down and under the cover of his sleeve, took his hand, giving it a squeeze. He bent his head as Harribel leaned in and began to whisper in his ear.

“This will complicate things, especially if Ise Nanao does not survive the Claiming process. You and I should take some time this evening to make some contingency plans. I fear what Starrk will do if she dies from the punishment Aizen bestowed on him.”

“Punishment?” he whispered back, realizing he’d read Aizen’s earlier expression correctly.

“Yes. I’ll explain later.”

With the show over and the afternoon threatening to turn into evening, Harribel led him, not back home as he had expected, but to one of the better restaurants in the First District. The place specialized in frozen desserts, and her selection, while welcome, confused him. Then it dawned on him that the girls would need to cast their Claims, and he had no desire to be at Harribel’s den when they did. He also hoped that Soi Fon, who was on her way to meet with another of Yoruichi’s hidden contacts, didn’t come back too soon from her ‘errands.’ The walls in that house were far too thin for his liking and he certainly did _not_ want to know what Iemura sounded like in the throes of passion.

He sent his mate an exceedingly grateful look and she gave him an understanding smile in return.

 _I hope her mask stays like this after she gives birth. Her smile is truly enchanting,_ he thought wistfully, which served as the extent of his positive outlook. The final view he’d had of Starrk and the two he’d Claimed were the backs of their haori as they walked behind the First Espada.

Toshiro sincerely hoped that it wouldn’t be the last he saw of Ise Nanao.

Starrk did not like this, not one bit. If he had any lingering doubts about the wisdom of removing Aizen from power, the events of the meeting had laid them to rest. Moreover, he found himself in a terrible situation, with regard to the vow he’d made to keep Kyoraku Shunsui’s family and his best friend safe.

Thanks to Aizen’s edict, he would be forced to rape the man’s mate, Hana’s mother. Aizen’s callous disregard for the differences in their respective reiatsu strengths only added to his fury. Worse, to even dare to _suggest_ that he let some Numeros mount her in his place… the order left him speechless. It was probably a good thing that Lilynette had not been there, for his more vibrant half would have had no problems telling Aizen exactly what they _both_ thought of the idea. He would also have to thank Harribel for speaking up before he could, thus keeping him alive, for Aizen would have cut him down where he stood if he’d given voice to his outrage.

 _When was the last time I had this much energy or this great an urge to tear out someone_ _’_ _s throat?_ he wondered, before trying to keep his reiatsu in check lest he harm those they passed in the street. The evening crowd parted before them anyway, sensing the ire of the predator in their midst, even if they weren’t its target.

Jushiro and Nanao followed behind him as he led them back to the Estate. The two of them quietly discussed each of the Arrancar that had chosen their top officers. The general consensus was that they had more or less ended up with decent Masters and that eased some of their concerns, though not all of them. At least Aizen had taken steps to insure that this round of Claiming wouldn’t be the horrific free-for-all the first had been.

Their hushed conversation died when the three made it to the front porch.

“Starrk!! Starrk!!”

_Oh no_ _…_

Lilynette flung the door open and he saw that she was wearing one of the aprons kept on a hook near the kitchen door. A quick glance at the girl’s face made him wish he hadn’t come home, especially when she latched on to his arm and all but dragged him into the foyer.

“Starrk! Dinner’s almost ready and we have plans to make! What did that jerk want anyway and why did that stupid meeting take so long? Was it about the Swarm again or did he…”

“Lilynette, I…” he started, when Jushiro drew his other, smaller half away.

“Lilynette-sama, I think you and I should have a talk. Have you started dinner yet?”

“Not really, I mean, I have the rice cooking but…”

His ‘pet’ didn’t let her finish. Instead, he turned towards Starrk and put two fingers on Lilynette’s mouth, his eyes begging for the First’s male half to allow him to handle this, or at least deliver the bad news. Starrk couldn’t summon up the courage to tell her what he’d have to do to one of their pack members and found he couldn’t lift his eyes from the floorboards.

Lilynette’s eager expression faded as she took in the three sombre faces above her.

“Something bad’s happened, hasn’t it? Starrk? Starrk, answer me, dammit!”

“Lilynette, go with Jushiro and get something for dinner for the both of you. He’ll tell you what’s going on after you’ve eaten. You’re to stay with him at all times, do you understand?”

Starrk put enough force behind the last part to make Lilynette freeze in her tracks. She clutched at her apron with white knuckles until Nanao heaved a sigh and moved forward to place a comforting hand on the girl’s other shoulder.

“Lilynette, Starrk and I have a few things we need to work out between us. That’s all. Jushiro, you can explain things to her out near the Zen garden, near your study. Stay close, because I might need you, depending on how we choose to handle this. If Starrk and I don’t call for you in an hour,” she told the child and then bit her lip, the only sign she showed that she wasn’t entirely comfortable with the conversation, “then I want you and Jushiro to go get some take out from one of the night markets and eat without us.”

When an angry Lilynette looked as if she would protest, Nanao’s eyes narrowed.

“I agree with Starrk-sama. You need to stay with Jushiro. He’s had a difficult day. I also need you to make certain he takes his evening medicine while Starrk and I handle this. He’s been a bit lax about it of late.”

The switch from ‘patient and motherly’ to ‘commanding and decisive’ took less than two seconds and Lilynette quailed beneath Nanao’s authoritative stance. The girl looked back and forth between Starrk and Jushiro, her suspicion plain to see. Once again, Jushiro rode to his rescue.

“It’s nothing to do with our plans, I promise,” he swore to the smaller Arrancar and held up both hands. “Nanao’s right. It’s been a very trying day.”

That, if anything, was an understatement. Jushiro gave Starrk a sad look and then looked worriedly at Nanao. He could feel the older Shinigami’s dread as a palpable thing, like sludge seeping through the Claim between them and didn’t blame the other in the slightest.

“You are much stronger than you used to be,” Jushiro said in turn to Nanao, as if to reassure the woman and possibly himself that the outcome of what their Master had to do wouldn’t end up costing the woman her life. His cryptic phrasing also didn’t hurt; the last thing they needed was Lilynette doing something foolish.

“I know. Thank you Jushiro.”

She gave the white haired man a weak smile before she faced Starrk, her chin lifted resolutely. “Shall we go to my room? I will make us both a cup of tea,” she offered, and then added, for Lilynette’s benefit “as well as put the cooked rice away. It will make a good breakfast.”

That took him by surprise, and even more so that _she_ was inviting _him_ to her bedchamber. Granted, his room was one of the places he refreshed Jushiro’s Claim, the other being the man’s own room or one of the more private gardens if the night was nice. Perhaps she didn’t want to be reminded of the act he and Jushiro had to perform in order to keep the other alive and relatively unharmed.

He nodded, not quite trusting his voice not to betray the depths of his fear and his self-loathing to Lilynette. Jushiro made some mention to the small Arrancar of a new bag of sweets he’d obtained two days ago and herded his upset female half away towards his study. Meanwhile, Nanao retreated to the kitchen and set about making the tea. He hovered uncertainly by the table, feeling torn about what he was about to do. With Jushiro it was business; as pleasurable as it was at the time, neither man truly wanted the other in that way. With her… well, she was the mother of one of the greatest lights in his life. She had forgiven him in time for Shunsui’s death and never treated him as anything but a welcome guest at first, and then later like… well, he would almost say like a brother, save that he had little to go on as far as comparisons to a sibling. Nanao had encouraged her daughter to interact with him, even though she could have raised the child to both hate and fear him for his role in her father’s death. She ensured that he showed up at every family dinner if he could and actively made him a part of her and her daughter’s life. He felt like he was poaching in on territory that was not his.

Starrk blinked as she set the cup of steaming tea before him. He hadn’t realized he’d zoned out that long already, his mind whirling about in a hateful spiral for what he was about to do to her.

Instead of picking up the cup, he buried his face in his hands.

“You might not survive this,” he whispered brokenly. “It’s hard on Jushiro, and he is much stronger than you are now.”

“True,” Nanao agreed, a bit too calmly. “Nevertheless, consider our plans, would you really trust me to a Numeros? A single command from a new ‘master’ and I could be forced to spill everything.”

Starrk scrubbed his face and rested his forehead on his clasped hands, hunched over while he digested her reasoning. What bothered him about it was that she was, as usual, quite right. Nanao knew too much to be given to anyone outside of their small circle of conspirators. Ulquiorra wouldn’t touch Nanao on principle. Harribel had already chosen her three Claims and Harribel’s fraccion were too flighty and would be interested in the more carnal aspects of having a pet. He simply couldn’t see Nanao wanting that much sex, if the rumours were accurate. How that white-haired youth Harribel had taken had survived the Trés Bestias _and_ their mistress, Starrk would never know.

_Lad must be made of cast iron_ _…_

“Besides,” she continued and offered him a conciliatory smile. “I think I know of a way to bring your power down a bit. Well, three ways, actually, but one is a bit faster and much safer than the others.”

He looked up at her, confused at first, before he took in her patient expression and let her proceed.

“Our first option is for you and Jushiro to hack at each other for a bit while I sit here comfortably and enjoy my tea, until you burn through enough reiatsu to put you at an acceptable level to Claim me.”

He frowned, not particularly liking that one. It required too much exertion on his part, though he supposed that was the whole point of it, and there was considerable risk to Jushiro in going all out against his friend. He’d do it if he had to, but he wanted to hear her other ideas first. She must have sensed his hesitation, because she immediately went to his next choice.

“You can make use of Lilynette,” she replied, taking a sip of her tea and encouraging him to do the same. Starrk gingerly picked up his teacup, the heat from the ceramic seeping into his fingers. “Enter into your Resurrección and transfer most of your reiatsu to her.”

That one had potential, especially if he summoned his Cero-powered wolf pack and spread his reiatsu from wolf to wolf. It would spread Lilynette’s soul out too, but it was unlikely _all_ of her would find trouble sniffing around the Estate. The Achilles heel of that particular plan lay in the ones that _would_ go off, probably damaging the buildings, the walls and everyone nearby when she put her nose in something she shouldn’t. Sparring with Jushiro actually sounded better when he thought of Los Lobos’ wolves detonating in the Estate’s gardens.

“What is the last option?”

“A partial seal on your reiatsu. Basically, it’s a modified Kido seal that regulates how much reiatsu one can draw upon,” she answered, and he understood that this was the choice that she had deemed the safest. “We typically use them on less powerful prisoners, but it might just be enough to ‘soften the blow.’ It’s a version of the limiters placed on high-ranking Shinigami assigned to missions in the Living World, to cut their spiritual pressure by a certain percentage, though the old 12th Division placed and controlled them. This would be something powered by _my_ reiatsu, without the backing of an entire Division’s tracking system.”

 _Now we_ _’_ _re getting somewhere,_ he thought as he considered the last plan. Of the three, this seemed the most feasible, though how effective it would be remained to be seen.

“You can create one?”

“I believe so,” she answered, then paused. “I know _how_ it works and how to created one, but I have never personally used such a spell before. Soi Fon, on the other hand, would most likely know more about it, as it’s a spell that those in the former 2nd Division’s punishment force would employ on a regular basis. The problem with getting her to cast it, however...”

_…would be her lack of speech. She can’_ _t cast what she can_ _’_ _t chant._

Nanao would have to be the one to perform the Kido, as he had no guarantee that Jushiro knew the spell and his friend would have his hands full with Lilynette. He chewed on the information. The more he gnawed at it, the more he liked it, if only because it was the only option that didn’t involve some kind of fighting. Nanao was a Kido expert and he had no desire to summon Soi Fon back to the house. The pregnant woman had left yesterday and was only now settling into Harribel’s household.

This plan also appealed to him because it would give Nanao a bit of power in the upcoming event, and might make her feel less like a victim, even though they both knew that what they were about to do could be the end of her.

“I trust you to do so. Do you need anything from me?” he asked.

“No, just your wrist so I can place it.”

Starrk offered her his arm without protest. Nanao gently took it and nonsensical poetry spouted from her mouth while her fingers contorted in weird and un-natural ways. After five minutes of hard concentration and tricky linguistics, she finished her chant. A bright yellow band of symbols he didn’t recognize flared to life, circling his wrist and he felt as if a dam had been placed on his power.

“You could break it if you really tried,” she stated, though she appeared satisfied with the results, before taking another sip of her tea.

He, on the other hand, stared down at it dubiously, inspecting it by looking at it from different angles. It seemed so fragile and the Espada knew that if he tested it at all, he’d probably destroy it and undo all her hard work. Maybe this was why Aizen had never bothered to use such a thing on Unohana. He said nothing about it though, as his observations would just create unnecessary stress for her. The experience would be stressful enough for her without worrying about him shattering the seal.

The overwhelming urge to put her at ease was back so he scrounged around for something, _anything_ helpful he could say to her, as well as make conversation to fill the tense space between them.

“You _have_ been exposed to my reiatsu for some time. Maybe, as with all of those pregnant women, your body will have adapted to my power by now, and as such it should be able to handle a Claim better than it would have fifteen years ago. While it’s still difficult for Jushiro, I’ve found that I no longer need to worry about harming him.”

When she turned the cup around and around in her hands, not saying anything, Starrk tried a different approach, which involved giving her a compliment he should have provided years ago. “I know you could have attained your Bankai by now, if you hadn’t hobbled your own progress in an attempt to get around Aizen’s laws.”

It almost sounded like an accusation, and he wanted to kick himself the moment it was out of his mouth.

“Was I that transparent?” she asked quietly and Starrk smacked his forehead. Then she smiled, as if she found something funny. “Well, now I won’t have to keep holding back. I will finally be able to train forward. She will be very happy about that at least.” Nanao’s eyes flickered to her Zanpakuto, on its stand on the dresser.

His fraccion seemed oddly calm about this, he noted, but she was a Taichou, even if she didn’t have Bankai, and grace under pressure was something all leaders needed. Mothers probably needed a healthy dose of it as well, and Hana, Lilynette and Ajuga had certainly tested everyone’s patience over the years, sometimes on a daily basis. Nanao always managed to stay composed, despite the overwhelming desire to burst into laughter, even in the most trying, most ridiculous circumstances. The time the three got the idea to bake Jushiro a cake came to mind. The result involved sugar and flour getting _everywhere_ , coating every surface in the kitchen and all three girls from head to toe, although it was harder to see on Ajuga’s white fur. Nanao had been the lone adult with the presence of mind to march each child into the middle of the garden and douse each in turn with a bucket of water, keeping calm amid the whining and yowling, unaffected by pleas for mercy. Her response had been quick, efficient and resulted in two clean cubs and an Arrancar brat that ought to have known better.

Briefly he wondered what it would be like to have children of his own. What would Nanao look like if she were happy while pregnant instead of grieving? Karin had _glowed_ , as did Tatsuki and Rangiku the few times he had seen them, though the latter seemed more happy that she was pregnant than the one who had made her so. The few smiles Jushiro had coaxed out of Nanao while she’d carried her dead lover’s daughter had made her sparkle, before the gloomy shroud she’d worn for years afterward snuffed them out.

The image his mind conjured stayed a moment, and then fled as he took in the woman sitting next to him at the table, reality trumping any fleeting fantasy he might have. Disgust at himself, disgust at Aizen’s latest ploy, rage at his failure to follow through with his promise washed over him again… the calming tea in his cup could dispel none of it. He did _not_ want to do this, just as he hadn’t wanted to Claim Jushiro each year when the bond between them began to fade. Starrk had once accepted a collar from a white-garbed man who had promised him and Lilynette companionship and the ability to walk among others. That same collar now threatened to choke him, cutting into his throat and suffocating him after forcing him to harm the ones he’d come to care for, to cherish, all on the orders of that same man.

No self-respecting wolf should or would stand for it.

Nanao finished her cup of tea and rose, presumably to get more. Instead she set her cup in the sink, rinsed out the pot and turned to face him. There was a bit of anxiety in her eyes, but she covered it well as she regarded him from behind her glasses.

“My room is this way,” she announced, and without further preamble, turned her back on him and left the kitchen.

It felt like swimming through molasses as he forced himself to rise and follow her, barely hearing the scrape of the chair against the kitchen tiles. Like the rest of her suite, her room was immaculate, as neatly organized and tidy as she was. He watched while standing in the open doorway, slightly transfixed, as she took her glasses off, folded the sides, and set them on a night table beside her futon. Her hairclip was next, freeing the dark waves of her hair, with their blue-black highlights, to fall down her back. Nanao massaged her scalp, tilting her head back as she raked her fingers several times through her hair and worked out a few tangles in her dimly-lit room. When she moved to open the doors to the small garden on the opposite side of the room, he took a step inside and slid the door closed.

Without turning to face him, she let her Taichou’s haori slide from her shoulders, folded it neatly, and set it aside atop a box she probably used for storing her workday clothing. The rest of her uniform followed and Starrk got the feeling he was witnessing a bedtime ritual. He barely registered her nudity until she turned to face him, looking like a completely different woman without her glasses, her hair down, and minus a single stitch of clothing. His eyes didn’t wander, and instead settled on her eyes, for once unguarded by glass. She’d set aside her shields, the prim armour she usually wore to deflect notice gone along with her spectacles and shifted her weight from one foot to another.

It was a sight that presumed only Shunsui had ever seen. She was showing it to him now and he felt like a complete heel, a rogue of the lowest order, a cheap mongrel...

“Starrk, are you going to undress?” she asked.

Her words pushed him into reluctant movement and he slowly followed her example, folding his own uniform and staring at the clothing in his hand when he was as naked as she was, wondering where to put them. Dropping them on the floor in her quarters like he did in his chamber seemed wrong. She calmly came up to him and took them from him, setting his clothes next to her own neat pile on the chest, solving his dilemma.

Nanao took one of his hands and led him to her bed. How odd was it, he thought, that he was going to be the one to take her, to possibly kill her, and yet she was the one leading? It was a good thing he didn’t share a telepathic link with Lilynette the way the Shinigami did with their Zanpakuto. The girl would either be laughing hysterically at him by now, much the way she had when she had told a stunned Ulquiorra that Ajuga had dominated Diaemus, or calling him all kinds of terrible things at the top of her lungs.

Orihime, at least, had been thrilled with the news, squealing in utter delight, but Ulquiorra had been rendered speechless by the fact that not only had Ajuga laid Claim to his son, but that the act had made the two of them nobility. The thought his son had been bested and taken by Ajuga had been too much for the Fourth. Starrk had taken pity on his fellow Espada and finally informed him that the incident had come about by a series of well-timed accidents and that no actual Claims been cast, although the Consort bond was apparently very much like a mating Claim that never faded. The two were stuck with each other until death. The addendum didn’t seem to mollify Ulquiorra, but then, sometimes it was hard to tell with the Espada.

His shins hit the edge of the futon and he looked down at her as she kneeled on the bed, staring up at him expectantly. Of course, she wouldn’t know the actual procedure for a Claim, only that it involved sex.

“Do you want this?” he asked her, almost as much out of habit as well as his need to hear a positive answer.

“Yes Starrk. I’m no virgin. I’ve had a man before,” she reminded him with perhaps a touch of amusement, “and while I would not say I am in love with you, I don’t find you unattractive. I know the laws and I know you picked me. I have had many years to prepare for this night. When I made Taichou I expected Aizen to demand this, despite my lack of a Bankai. I have long since made peace with doing this… with you.”

She reached out and let the fingers of her right hand travel from a spot below the hole in his chest, to just above his navel, leaving a trail of sensation that forced him to inhale sharply. Nanao’s expression turned thoughtful as she saw the goose-bumps form under her fingertips.

“You are a good man Starrk, and while I miss Shunsui, he’s gone and the wound from his loss has long since healed over. I knew him for over a hundred years, and I will never forget him, but he would be very displeased if I chose to live in the past, frozen like a bug in amber, rather than moving on. He was all about living life to the fullest, after all.”

In some things, she was wiser than he was. With a nod of his head, he kneeled down before her on the edge of the futon, finally letting his eyes drift down her body. There were a few faint stretch marks from her pregnancy with Hana, and his mind once again generated an image of her, her belly round with his child and smiling down at him as he put his ear to her midsection, before he shook his head. Her breasts were perhaps not as high as they’d been when he’d first laid eyes on her, but they were fuller and for some reason he had the urge to cup one and taste a nipple, to see if it was sweet on his tongue like the chocolate it resembled.

Otherwise everything about her was fit, as expected of a military officer. Starrk had to swallow a few times before he remembered he was supposed to be making this easier on her, rather than leering. He did find his voice, but not the courage to look her in the eye while he gave her the needed information.

“When casting a partial Claim, it is traditionally done from behind. It is not uncommon to also… prepare the one being Claimed,” he offered hesitantly, certain she would take that as him going too far, but he wasn’t willing to deny her the option if she wanted it. Unprepared sex would hurt, and he had no desire to cause her pain.

A dusting of pink emerged on her cheeks as she understood what he was trying to say. In response, Nanao reached for the handle on the drawer of her nightstand. Opening it, she pulled out a bottle of lubricant. There were a few other objects in the drawer, but he didn’t get a chance to see them before she shut it. Starrk was a little surprised she had lube next to her bed, but decided that it was her room and therefore her business.

She scooted back on the coverlet until she was fully seated on her futon and popped the cap before pouring a generous amount of the cream within onto her fingers. She then closed her eyes, spread her legs and prepared her body for his entry. The show certainly helped Starrk overcome a few of his reservations and he felt a sizeable amount of blood rush south at the sight of her fingers stroking her exposed nether lips and clitoris before two of them sank into her entrance, moving slowly in and out and spreading the cream that would ease his passage into her.

It didn’t take her long to prepare herself and it took him a minute to realize that she’d opened her deep blue eyes, looking up at him and waiting for further instruction.

He swallowed to wet his suddenly dry throat, and wondered if someone had accidentally turned the heat up in the room, because he felt a droplet of sweat trickle down from his temple, to splash on his collarbone. It was far too warm, despite the open garden door and for some reason, he had to fight to keep his eyes on hers and not let them wander back to the glistening folds between her widely parted thighs.

“You can lie on your stomach, or get onto your hands and knees, whichever you find most comfortable,” he whispered hoarsely. “Only mates take each other face to face, and I would not presume as much.”

Nanao offered him one last reassuring smile, before handing him the bottle of cream and rolling onto her stomach. She stacked her two pillows under her hips to help support her weight while he spread the same amount of cream he’d seen her use on his shaft. This stuff was far different from the plain silicon-based lube he used to keep from harming Jushiro. His entire cock suddenly felt warmer, thicker, the skin alight with a sensation that made him want friction enough to quench it.

The Espada almost dropped the lube, managing to get the cap back on with slick fingers and then grasped her hips as he moved on to the bed behind her, the mattress giving way beneath his knees. He’d only ever had sex with Jushiro before, but he wasn’t so naive as to not know what went where. With one hand he steadied himself and with the other he placed the head of his cock at her wet entrance, both of them slick with the stimulating lube. Much as he did with Jushiro, he entered her slowly, rocking back and forth and working his way carefully into her tight heat. Unlike Jushiro, he couldn’t read her emotions so he didn’t know if he was hurting her or not. He had to look for visual cues as to how she was doing. Her shoulders seemed relaxed, as were the hot, velvety walls encasing him as he sank deeper inside of her. It also seemed easier to slide in and took considerably less work.

Then a noise that wasn’t quite a giggle reached his ears. He stopped half- in-and-half-out of her channel as she laughed quietly, her head resting on her folded arms and her shoulders shaking lightly in mirth.

“I am not such a weak woman that you need to worry about breaking me,” he heard her say, her tone a bit dry. “This isn’t anal sex. A vagina is built to take a man’s length without taking damage, if she’s ready for him. You don’t have to be so careful.”

Kami, she was lecturing him about sex while he half buried inside of her! Starrk couldn’t help it. He let out a laugh of his own. To his surprise, she looked over her shoulder at him lowering her lashes in such a way that made him tighten his grip on her hips. The entire situation suddenly seemed absurd. She was clearly waiting to take him in, showed no signs of stress and yet he was the one panicking. He would have thought that it should have been the other way around. Just like that, most of the stress suddenly fled the room.

Well, if she was ready for him...

He pulled all but the head of his cock out, and then thrust back in, burying himself completely within her tight, moist heat. He also sent a controlled shot of his reiatsu into her body. She immediately gasped as pleasure raced through her, arching her back as he bottomed out inside of her. Unlike Jushiro, she didn’t bother trying to smother her pleasure. If anything, she almost seemed desperate for more of it, and she let him know as much when she involuntarily tightened around him and pressed back against him, clutching the sheets.

For a second, all Starrk saw was stars.

The seal around his wrist held, regulating how much reiatsu he could get past the dam and into her, but it wouldn’t hold forever and the margins on it were much too thin. The amount he’d given her was still far more than most other Shinigami could handle and he didn’t want to chance it breaking. He’d been right; she _had_ gotten stronger over the years and he knew at that point that she could accept more from him before he’d have to complete the Claim. Starrk hoped he could do so quickly, before he pumped too much into her and passed the line between ‘not enough’ and ‘too much’ reiatsu.

A different voice in his head wanted to howl triumphantly at how perfectly her body cradled his, how _good_ it felt to have her flesh surrounding him, and her surprisingly lovely form wriggling beneath him, the tilt of her hips encouraging him.

This was unlike all of the other times he’d had sex. He had to copulate with Jushiro out of necessity and had to work to get his body aroused enough to recast the Claim each time. It was far different being with a woman, especially one that wanted him as deep within her as he could get. The gasps she made as he filled her with his reiatsu and massaged her insides with his straining shaft sent a flush of pride through him and far more blood to the organ pleasing her.

Her body was softer and smaller against his, her pale skin smoother and her sighs were like music in his ears. Starrk quickened his thrusts. Long-neglected instincts emerged as the musky scent of her arousal, the cream and the act itself filled his nose, making his mouth water and kindled a whine in the back of his throat. Nanao rocked back against him, encouraging every push with a needy moan, her inner walls squeezing him each time the head of his cock brushed against her cervix.

The Espada knew he was nearly there when one of his hands left her hip to skim along the tense quivering muscles of her lower belly, seeking the wetness where their bodies came together and letting his fingers find the center of her pleasure. He stroked the cream-swollen bud in time with each pulse of reiatsu into her slender frame. Her moans intensified, turning into pleasured cries as that one little action dragged them both towards the point of no return.

Her body brimmed with his power and with the last of his self-control Starrk realized that he couldn’t risk forcing any more of it into her, that he had to finish creating the bond now. He didn’t even recall brushing her dark hair to the side and nuzzling the back of her slender neck with his lips. The next thing he knew he’d buried his canines in the juncture between her neck and her shoulder. The Espada gulped mouthfuls of their combined reiatsu along with her blood. The mixture of his power mixed with hers and the sweet red liquid that carried it encouraged him to drain more and more of it.

The wet clenching heat in which he was buried suddenly became far tighter and he heard her scream something aloud as she came, propelled there by both his bite and by the fingers that continued to play with her throbbing clitoris.

Starrk’s brain, in turn, filled with multicoloured fireworks that exploded all at once as he reached completion, grinding into the woman below him as if his life depended on it. He pumped surge after surge of semen into her body and felt the emotions from his newest acquisition slowly trickle in as he completed the Claim, swallowing enough of her reiatsu to forge the connection.

As he finally came down from his high, the last spurt of his seed heating her depths, he realized his teeth were still embedded in her neck. He slowly pulled away and licked the wound apologetically, again out of instinct. His mind and his reason slowly returned as the blissfulness he’d grabbed receded, a state he had never attained after taking Jushiro.

He eventually pulled away from her, wincing at the squelching sound as his softening shaft fell from her. A trickle of white fluid escaped her entrance to dribble down the inside of her thigh. Nanao moved shakily to push the pillows she had placed under her hips out of the way and lay down fully on her stomach, panting lightly. The naked Shinigami shivered a few times, getting used to the new power entrapping her own. They were both soaked in sweat and her hair was completely disarrayed, wild strands snaking across her bare shoulders and the coverlet.

Staring down at her blearily, Starrk had to admit he found the sight of Ise Nanao, thoroughly dishevelled, her unbound hair in disarray and her form limp and boneless on the rumpled bedding incredibly appealing. Knowing he was the cause of it was, unfortunately, a double-edged sword.

His recovery came complete with a serving of despondence at what he’d just done, at his betrayal of Kyoraku Shunsui’s trust. She was Claimed and belonged to him now. He’d taken a woman he’d vowed to protect at all costs, even from himself if necessary. Worse, he’d enjoyed doing it, almost losing his sanity while he’d had her beneath him.

 _He made me promise to Claim her if I was able,_ he reminded himself in a vain effort to make himself feel less like a ravaging brute. It didn’t work very well.

Starrk braced himself for the onslaught of negative emotions as she regained a bit of composure, her breathing hard and her frame still trembling from the aftershocks. He expected to be hit by remorse and morbidity, maybe even anger, shock or hatred for him at taking away her freedom.

What he hadn’t expected was utter exhaustion mingled with languid contentment, as well as the last, toe-curling waves of the pleasure he’d wrung from her.

“Nanao?” he began, concerned but not quite ready to move just yet. Even keeping some of his power in check, Claiming was still an exhausting ride and he’d been trying to keep things in check for the sake of the seal.

“Oh, Kami… it was everything they said it was,” she breathed wistfully, sounding awestruck and not-at-all upset. “No wonder Karin and Grimmjow get so vocal! Are _you_ alright?”

A shot of worry, not for herself, but for him, flowed through the newly-minted Claim, surprising him with its intensity.

“Yes,” he confessed, drawing closer to her and brushing her hair away from her face so that he could see her better.

“‘kay,” she murmured, before she hauled her body up, pulled back the covers and indicated that he should join her as she slid between the cotton sheets. Then she pulled the bedding over them both and nestled against his warmth. “Shower morning, sleep now,” she practically purred into his chest.

Starrk stared down at her as she closed her eyes and her breathing evened out, not entirely certain about what had just occurred, but willing to treat it as a ‘win’ anyway. He could always go for more sleep. Nanao would likely come to her senses in the morning, realize she’d just had frenzied sex with the man that had murdered her mate and probably bombard him with grief and self-loathing. But for now it was nice to bask in the muted contentment she fed him even if it was weak thanks to the newness of the bond. Her emotions were completely different from what he was currently getting from Jushiro. The older Shinigami had veered from gut wrenching concern to relief now that it was over and Nanao had clearly come out of their encounter alive.

Adjusting the blankets around them, he hesitantly wrapped an arm around the woman he’d just Claimed. She had started to shiver as the sweat from their activities cooled in the evening breeze, and he would be a very poor male if he let her take a chill. It didn’t take long to fall asleep himself, spooned up behind her as a bulwark against the cold.

When he woke the next morning it was to an empty bed, but he could hear, faintly, someone puttering about in the kitchenette attached to her suite. Rolling over on to his back, he stared at the ceiling in an attempt to get his bearings. He then looked at the clock on the nightstand and if the time on it was correct, they’d slept for well over twelve hours. In addition, they’d missed a meal and were in danger of skipping another.

As he had last night, Starrk rubbed his face with the palms of both hands and steeled himself for the rush of remorse and reproach he expected from his fraccion-turned-pet. Instead, what he got was a sort of delicious satisfaction, some concern aimed squarely at her officers with a bit of worry for her daughter and Karin thrown into the mix.

Moreover, the satisfaction seemed to go hand in hand with more than a few sparks of desire as she mulled over what they’d done while she beat eggs for a breakfast of omelettes.

Her emotional state left him both confused and stupidly pleased and unsure whether he really ought to take credit for it. Starrk also knew he wasn’t going to get any answers by lying in bed, though he now had the means to make her come to him if he chose. That idea left him cold. There was a folded towel next to his clothes and he took that as a hint to take a hot shower, which was fine when he realized that her shower smelled strongly of the scented soap and shampoo she used, which made him want to linger in it long past the point where the water went cold, breathing in steam that smelled like her hair.

By the time he made it to the kitchen, dressed in his uniform, Nanao had breakfast underway and the kitchen table set for two. A cup of strong, steaming tea awaited him. She was already dressed for the day and her hair was damp from her own shower, carefully pinned in its usual style.

“Good morning,” she said. Her greeting was smooth and unhurried as she poured herself a cup of the same tea.

“Good morning,” he replied awkwardly and scratched the back of his neck. His sheepish, hangdog expression earned him a burst of exasperation as well as some amusement, as her eyes twinkled behind her glasses when she turned around to face him.

“It was _sex_ , Starrk. Necessary, wonderful and _memorable_ sex. I don’t think anyone else will ever be able to satisfy me like that again,” she sighed and began ladling miso into bowls and placing rolled omelettes onto a large platter before covering it. Nanao brought the meal to the table, along with some of the reheated rice that Lilynette had started the night before. Starrk’s stomach reminded him that he hadn’t eaten since yesterday, letting out a growl loud enough that he swore the neighbours could hear it. She stared at his midsection before giving him a look that made him immediately sit down and sit up straight.

“You sound as if you would not be opposed to doing it again,” he commented, taking two omelettes for himself and bringing his bowl of miso to his lips before he realized what he’d said.

Starrk froze in mid-slurp, as did she, her teacup halfway to her mouth. Starrk proceeded to berate himself, wondering if his blood sugar was low enough for his brain to short-circuit. Nanao, to his surprise, smiled at him before joining him at the table, picking the chair next to him rather than the spot across from him. He received no sense of hunger from her, so he assumed that she’d already eaten in an attempt to at least try to be on time for her shift.

“You’re right. I _would_ like to do that again,” she conceded, and Starrk’s stomach suddenly seemed filled with butterflies, along with half of a bowl of soup when Nanao went on. “As I told you last night, it’s been fifteen years and I’ve long since come to terms with Shunsui’s death. Should I resign myself to a life of abstinence, or remain faithful to a man’s memory, letting go of any hope of finding happiness with anyone else?”

“I am sure most would say ‘no,’” he responded, trying not to choke on the remainder of his soup.

“They would be right. Shunsui was a good man, and I loved him, despite his drinking and his shiftlessness, but he’s gone and it has been far too long to think about…this…” and here she gestured, to indicate she meant what they’d shared last night, “as a rebound.”

Starrk wasn’t certain what a ‘rebound’ was but decided it didn’t matter and didn’t ask for clarification. On a related note, he was more than happy to make sure the word ‘abstinence’ ceased to be part of her vocabulary, especially the portion of his anatomy that stirred between his legs as he recalled how she’d removed her uniform last night.

 _Down. Focus on what she_ _’_ _s saying,_ he silently snapped at the libido he’d been unaware he’d owned until the evening prior.

“Didn’t you once say that he asked you to Claim me?” She took another long sip of tea, the question hanging between them. When he nodded, she reached up and adjusted her glasses, looking at him over the tops of the frames. “He knew your Aspect was Loneliness, did he not?”

“Yeah. I told him before we fought, before we had to fight. Had I not… Aizen would not have hesitated to cut me down.” Starrk quickly realized where she was going with this, and it made him pause in mid-bite. Nanao gave voice to his unspoken suspicions.

“It occurred to me, while we were walking home last evening, that he might have foreseen this. I…had a very lonely childhood,” she confessed, her dark eyes looking down at the steaming tea in her cup. “No one likes it when a youngster is considerably brighter than they are, children or adults. I had no friends or family, save for one, and she disappeared during a mission when I was still little. If it weren’t for Shunsui,” she said the man’s name with a tinge of sadness, “I would have spent my entire life tucked away in some lonely library row, surrounded by the resentments of others. I definitely wouldn’t have had his encouragement. The fact he believed in me drove me to become who I am today, at least, at first.”

He let her continue, content to hear whether or not she’d come to the same conclusions he had. Another person’s similar assessment would make his justification of Claiming her feel less like he’d taken advantage of her, in light of Aizen’s most recent orders.

Nanao let out a deep breath, keeping him from dwelling on that. There would be enough time later today to ponder Aizen’s motives while they waited to hear back from Yoruichi.

“Shunsui was always too smart for his own good, when he bothered to stop drinking and slacking and apply his intellect to a problem. Perhaps he saw two birds of a feather, and you know how those end up flocking together. Did he really seem like a man that would let two people with the same issues wallow in their loneliness for a lifetime and _not_ try to find a solution, even if it was the last thing he did?”

Starrk swallowed the last of his second omelette and gazed at his reflection on his empty plate. No, Kyoraku Shunsui most certainly didn’t seem like that kind of a man. In fact, now that he thought about it, it was entirely possible that Shunsui had engineered this outcome, once he knew he wouldn’t leave the battlefield alive. Maybe he’d known that his ‘Nanao-chan’ and the reluctant warrior he’d fought would find some common ground if Starrk kept his word long enough. Now that he’d literally done what the man had asked, the idea that he’d betrayed Shunsui faded somewhat, in favour of feeling as if he’d finally fulfilled the dying man’s wish.

The woman sitting next to him drained her teacup and stood, laying a hand on his arm and leaning forward in a partial bow that brought her within reach.

“I need to go to work,” she informed him, her voice dropping a bit lower. “Once you’re done with breakfast, you should go and tell Jushiro and Lilynette we are _both_ fine. I also won’t have you beating yourself up about any of this. What’s done is done and I _definitely_ enjoyed myself last night. It was nice to have someone see me as something other than someone’s mother, or superior officer, for a change.”

Her fingers brushed his chin and before he knew it, she’d pressed her mouth against his. The kiss startled him and he felt her tongue slide across his lower lip, seeking entrance. The sensation was so new, so strange that yet again, he let her lead as what started out as quite a gentle thing deepened into something surprisingly substantial.

Nanao tasted of minted toothpaste and tea and she smelled of the soap she’d used that morning. Below that, the scent of blood where he’d bitten her mingled with her unique fragrance. He was dimly aware of the fingertips of the same hand she’d used to surprise him running along his cheekbone, the touch going straight to a region of his body that ought to have been tuckered out by now. When she pulled her lips away from his, he found his hands had started to reach for her of their own accord.

It was the first kiss he’d ever received, from anyone.

Coyote Starrk found he wanted more of those.

Many, many more.

When he opened his dazed slate-blue eyes, he found her smiling knowingly down at him. Starrk also noticed the faint blush on her cheeks and he discovered he quite liked knowing that what she’d just done to him had affected her too. She backed away, drawing her usual cool exterior around her like a cloak and turned on her heel, though she paused in the doorway leading out of her suite and looked back over her shoulder at him as he fumbled for his wits.

“Now finish your breakfast before it gets cold. I look forward to continuing this discussion later this evening, when you can show me what you mean by ‘preparation.’ Cream and toys have their limitations after all.”

Then she was gone, leaving him to gape at the door to the hallway long after he’d heard the main doors leading to the courtyard slide close.

 _Toys?_ his brain finally registered, still working on bringing his heartbeat back under control in the wake of what her mouth had done to his only moments before.

In less than the space of a day, every perception he’d had of Ise Nanao, of the woman he’d shared a house with for sixteen years, had been turned on its head and shattered. Starrk would never be able to look at her again in the same way and found he was glad of that. He closed his eyes and concentrated on what he was getting from her.

Giddy exhilaration, apprehension, a bit of modesty-derived embarrassment and a very strong desire to repeat what they’d done as soon as possible. As calm as she had been on the outside this morning, it seemed that she was reeling a bit from last night, as well as their conversation this morning. The jumble of emotions rooted him in his seat as he tried to sort them out and differentiate them from Jushiro’s, who was only now just waking up, courtesy of his smaller half trying to shake him until he opened his eyes.

In fact, she didn’t go to work straightaway, but rather towards Nnoitra’s house, or perhaps more accurately, Rangiku and Tatsuki. The closer she got, the more her excitement and embarrassment grew, but it didn’t cause her steps to falter in the least.

It must be some sort of ‘females-only’ thing, to compare notes when it came to what he’d come to understand were ‘juicy details.’ The pride he’d felt at reducing her to the mess she’d been last night flared again in his chest as he knew she’d give a positive recounting to the other women. Arrancar females were quite territorial, unless they belonged to the same pack, but apparently, _all_ Shinigami females belonged to the _same_ pack and freely communicated with one another about every little thing. That was good to know; anger one and he’d likely have all of them clamouring for his head. Starrk considered it a form of forewarning.

Unfortunately, that left him with the task of calming down Jushiro. The poor man was awash in strong emotions and Starrk sighed before running his hand through his hair. It would probably be for the best to get that awkward conversation out of the way, and he wondered just how much he ought to tell his friend. He’d never had this sort of conversation before, not with Lilynette and in reality, he and Jushiro tended to skirt around the issue of his Claim on the man unless there was a need to bring it up.

Starrk also thought of the treason they were planning. If Yoruichi’s band of rebels came up with the means to defeat and eradicate the tyrant, he would no longer have to force an unwanted bond on someone who had become a trusted friend. If Nanao wanted, he would let her Claim go as well. It was only fair, though he hoped he could convince her otherwise, starting later on tonight.

If Aizen had thought to make Starrk and his pack suffer with yesterday’s orders, his plan had backfired, and then some. The theft of the twins, the lies, the harassment of Szayel, and Karin’s imprisonment were more than enough to give Starrk motivation to remind Aizen exactly why Barragan had never attempted to subjugate him and Lilynette. This latest outrage had proved fatal to any remaining sense of allegiance he might have had. Finally, the image he’d conjured last night of Nanao, sitting in one of the gardens with her hair unbound, a smile on her face and a pup in her belly was the nail in its coffin.

He had a sense of purpose now, to see that outcome as something more than a daydream, provided it was something she wanted as well. There was some faint worry about what Hana might think, but from what Yoruichi had told him, the girl was just fine and might even be happy about the development. Nanao had raised a sharp child. On the other hand, he wondered: what would Jushiro say to him, knowing Nanao had invited him back to her bed tonight? He took his plate and bowl to the sink, fortified himself with another cup of tea and went to retrieve his other half before she started jumping up and down on Jushiro’s futon.

_Well,_ Starrk supposed, _I_ _’_ _m about to find out. I just hope he doesn_ _’_ _t throw the shoji set at me. There are far too many pieces in it for me to dodge all of them._


	69. Changes and Plans

Ajuga shivered, too much sweat pouring from her body. A pained whimper escaped her lips. She was in agony, or rather, the off-kilter Realms were in pain and she felt all of it. She wanted to use her newfound senses to find her mother, but there were too many distractions, too much work to do and she couldn’t spare the energy when she needed to use it elsewhere. Yoruichi was right, the imbalance was worse than anyone had suspected, almost past the point of saving and she had to set each Realm back in its proper place before every plane of existence descended into the chaos from which the current structure had once emerged.

It was hard work, and harder still to see if she’d done it correctly. There were so many Realms, so many lives. Ajuga now knew every human in the Living World, every Hollow in Hueco Mundo, every condemned soul in hell, every person in Soul Society, regardless of race. She could see the march of souls as they moved from the Living World, to the Seireitei and back again. She even knew the individuals that comprised the Swarm, and a large number of other sub-Realms that catered to the afterlives of the animals that existed alongside humans in the Living World and the Soul Society. She knew now why the spirits of trillions of dead animals, even the extinct ones, hadn’t overrun the Soul Society, as thousands of species had their own version of ‘Heaven’ and Soul Society was something of a way station for them.

She moaned as the Realms shifted again, and she latched on to them with her will alone, trying to move them back into place. It would have been easier if she knew what ‘correct’ was in the first place. All she had to work with was what felt ‘right’ and ‘wrong.’ Yoruichi had told her to trust her instincts, and that was what she was doing. Fortunately, she seemed to be good at it. Ajuga had no idea how long she had been at this, but she was almost done. The Realms were _almost_ stable again, and once everything clicked back into place, the majority of the pain ought to end, according to Yoruichi.

Of course, Yoruichi could also be blowing smoke, in which case Ajuga was going to skin herself a cat and have the noble for breakfast… or maybe lunch or dinner, since she wasn’t certain if it was day or night out.

“Ajuga,” a soft voice whispered and a hand brushed her sweat-soaked hair out of her eyes.

“D-mus.”

Her anchor reacted to her slurred words by clutching her closer to his body, grounding her in reality and reminding her of where she was in the vastness of Creation. With an effort that made all of the nerve endings in her body _burn_ , she managed to push and pull different Realms in a few different directions and a ‘ting’ of ‘rightness’ rang through her, like a chord struck on a gigantic tuning fork. The Realms were still a mess, but she felt she could afford to take a break. Her pain shrank as things settled. It diminished again when Diaemus took some of the burden from her shoulders onto his.

This was another reason for a Consort, she’d discovered. A partner was necessary to help keep the ruler sane while he or she dealt with the Realms. She needed all of it when she was working, but when it came time to rest, Diaemus took a large portion of the weight from her, easing her mind, body and spirit. He did it without asking, without question. He also did it with an ease that made her slightly jealous. He’d always been more organized than she was, more diligent and those qualities served him well in his new role.

Exhausted, she slumped in his arms, sighing as his scent rose into her nose. She had never noticed how he smelled before, other than their first, ill-fated meeting in which she’d mistaken him for a snack. Of course, the time they’d spent together in that cell probably counted, but they’d been more concerned with freezing to death than sweating there. She found she liked his scent and the feel of his feathery fur against the bare skin of her arms.

“Once you rest, we should bathe,” he commented, sounding just as tired as she was.

“You saying I smell bad?” she grumbled into his chest.

“I’m saying that Yoruichi-san thinks we should emerge long enough to eat dinner with the others, to let them know we’re still alive. In addition, our mingled scents might displease your father more than he already is,” he replied and now she could hear the nervousness in his voice

“Oh, yeah, good point,” she chuckled weakly.

Ajuga slowly peeled away from him, staggering as she got to her feet. The girl looked down and grimaced. Diaemus was right, she _did_ smell, and he looked little better. Bearing the weight of the worlds was hell on the mind _and_ the body.

_No wonder Aizen was getting pissy. I can’t imagine feeling like this for years upon years, and he had no one to help balance it,_ she thought sourly. _Then again, it’s his own fault for taking something that wasn’t supposed to be his in the first place. Serves that bastard right!_

What really angered her was that Aizen was stronger than she was, even now. Unfortunately, he lacked the ability to handle the Realms, able to see but not touch them. It must have been very frustrating to have all that power at his fingertips but be unable to wield it. Not that it excused him of his wrongdoing. He had tormented Szayel and others long before he’d ended up in the role of the Spirit King, but knowing what came attached to that job at least explained a few of his bad moods to her.

“Ajuga,” Diaemus called, reaching out and shaking her shoulder.

“Sorry, just thinking. Come on, let’s clean up,” she declared, and made for the bathroom attached to the bedroom Yoruichi had flung them into before giving them what instructions she could.

“Together?” he asked, surprised she’d suggest such a thing. Ajuga gritted her teeth in exasperation and rounded on her Consort.

“Why not? I am basically naked already, and so are you,” she pointed out. “It’s no different than standing in the rain together, and faster, unless you know of a way to molt all those feathers of yours and for me to slip out of my fur?” She raised one dark eyebrow as she gave him another practical reason for not taking turns under the water. “Besides, we might miss dinner, and I don’t know about you, but I am _starving_.”

He sighed, choosing not to argue with her after such an ordeal and joined her in the large shower. Ajuga had to give it to her aunt and uncle, they certainly had a nice den. It almost put Ukitake’s Estate to shame, although a large part of that was due to the fact this one had staff to maintain it. She’d also never seen a Western-style mansion before and the way the builders had fashioned it seemed exotic and very ornate. There was so much more furniture to have to worry about, as well as more rugs, more drapes, more detailing. Both were quite beautiful, in their own way.

Ajuga was also ashamed to admit it, but had she seen this place as a cub, all of those ornate rugs, drapes and decorations would have ended up as shredded toys… especially the ones with the tassels.

Showering took some time. Fur and feathers took longer to wash and dry than bare skin and neither of them wanted to leave trails of water in their wake. A blow dryer that Diaemus found in the cabinet under the bathroom sink helped, but the lingering steam and the dryer’s hot air resulted in a kind of fluffiness that no amount of brushing her fur or patting down Diaemus’ feathers could subdue. In the end, they gave up and emerged from the room to face the jeers that no doubt awaited them. She just hoped that food would accompany the mockery. It didn’t take them long to reach the dining room, since the layout of the mansion was much different from the maze-like Ukitake Estate. Everyone was there but Szayel and Nemu.

“Holy hell, what happened to you two?” she heard Hana snicker, trying to cover her mouth with her hand to quench it and failing. “You both look like you stuck a claw into an electrical socket!”

“Blow dryer,” Ajuga answered, moving towards the table. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to wash this much fur? I think I am shedding too, losing my winter coat,” she mused, looking down at her legs. Her tail curled up, resembling nothing more than a white bristle-brush and she looked at it irritably.

“Parts of you do look more like a Persian than a panther, your Majesty. It will settle down eventually. I’m…familiar with such struggles… or I _was_ , when I was younger.”

The softly spoken, diplomatic observation, as well as the use of her formal title drew Ajuga’s attention to Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck, sitting at the table a few place settings down from her uncle Ryuuken and her Aunt Yuzu. Abarai Renji sat next to her, filling another plate to place before his mate. The hybrid girl took in the woman’s long, wavy turquoise hair, generous curves and gleaming eyes, and wondered if she was referring to the tresses spilling from beneath her mask or something else.

_So that’s what she looks like! Wow, she’s pretty… and she certainly has Renji wrapped around her finger. Vindula-chan has some competition now._

The pregnant ex-Espada flushed as Renji returned to his seat, smiling happily at him as he moved his chair closer. The redhead appeared thrilled with the idea of fatherhood, with getting to spend real time with Nel and seemed hell bent on making up for the time he’d missed since she’d found out she was carrying his offspring.

“That’s good to know,” she replied and for some reason, she was glad Nel was there, with the rest of the Escapees. Her name and face weren’t on any of the ‘Wanted’ posters and the girl wondered if Aizen knew one of his creations had gone rogue on him. Ajuga suspected that she’d very much like the other female if she had a chance to talk with her privately. There was something about her that reminded Ajuga of Harribel and it wasn’t that the two women had occupied the same ranking.

Her father and uncle immediately glanced Ajuga’s way and she had a feeling that she still looked awful, despite her shower, by the way both men’s eyes narrowed. Odd that she had met her uncle only briefly so far, and yet he’d become surprisingly protective. Her father’s eyes slid from her to land on Diaemus and his look got darker. She hadn’t realized how close they had been standing until just now, but she refused to let her Papa intimidate her into moving away from him. In fact, Diaemus rested a hand on her shoulder and met her father’s gaze evenly.

“Good evening, Ajuga-chan, Diaemus-kun, please sit down so we can eat,” Yuzu ordered with a wide smile.

“Thank you, Oba-chan.” Ajuga bowed slightly to her aunt.

“It’s so nice to have you all here for dinner. Will you be joining us from now on Renji-san, Nel-chan?” Yuzu asked the couple, whom Ajuga suspected had their hands clasped below the table.

“Of course, Yuzu-chan! We’re sorry about the denning up, but we needed the time together,” Nel explained and smiled sweetly at her hostess. Ajuga’s nose informed her that the two had done almost nothing over the last seventy-two hours but partake of one another, with breaks for the application of soap, water and food. Anyone who was stupid enough to miss the fact that they belonged together deserved to get their tail kicked into the next prefecture.

“I understand and it’s no problem,” Yuzu assured her, taking in the two of them a bit wistfully.

“Is Nemu-san dragging Szay out of whatever basement he crawled into?” Ajuga asked, taking her seat at the table across from her father, Diaemus sitting down beside her.

“I doubt she could,” Renji snorted. “Don’t worry, we’ll bring them something to eat after dinner and I am sure Nemu will see to it that he doesn’t work himself to death. I’ve seen him work for longer stretches than this.”

Nemu _was_ good at doing that. She had taken care of the Espada for the last fifteen years after all and knew how to get him to pay attention to his health. Of course, unlike most of his other projects, this one had a hard, unforgiving deadline. Karin’s Claim would not last forever, and unless Nel or Grimmjow picked it up, he would quickly regress back into a child and be of little help to them. As there was no one else who stood a chance of deciphering Kisuke’s notes, they had to keep Szayel as a fully reasoning adult if they were to succeed.

“Actually, Nemu is dragging him out of the lab as we speak, and they should be here soon.”

Yoruichi appeared in the doorway, easily taking the chair next to Hachi and stifling a yawn. “Now that Ajuga and Diaemus can breathe a little, and you two have surfaced, we can finally go over everything I learned and get planning. So let’s start with the checklist. Hachi and Hana are making excellent headway with the shield needed to keep the poor Plus souls from frying once we get the party started. Aizen has lost quite a bit of power, thanks to Ajuga. Speaking of which, how goes the balancing act?”

“It’s awful,” Ajuga grimaced, her ears going flat against her head. Her miserable expression earned her worried looks from everyone at the table. “It just… it _hurts_ , because it’s been left to fester for so long. I move one thing, another piece shifts the wrong way, I have to go after _that_ piece to get it back into the right place… and all the while, it feels like someone’s peeling my skin off and clawing me. I finally got it to where I can let it go for a little while. Nothing’s moving right now, but it won’t stay that way until it’s fixed entirely.”

Diaemus put his arm around her shoulders and she gratefully leaned into it, for both the pain mitigation it provided as well as the sympathy. Her Papa bristled a bit, but a tandem-warning glare from her Uncle Ichigo and her Aunt Rukia had him hunched back in his seat.

Szayel and Nemu arrived before she could say more. If Ajuga thought she and Diaemus looked bad, they had nothing on the cloud hanging over Szayel’s head. The Espada hadn’t slept at all, probably since the last night of the forced march. The heavy, dark circles under his eyes, visible through his cracked glasses didn’t help matters.

“Oh, Szayel-san,” Yuzu sighed, looking at him. “Sit down and eat. Afterwards, you and your mate will break for a nap.”

For a moment it almost looked like he was going to protest, but Yuzu just smiled at him and tapped the spoon in her hand ominously against her plate, serving herself some steamed vegetables and making her point at the same time. All of the men, even the giant Kenpachi, slowly leaned away from the table.

“I will do that,” he promised meekly, all but collapsing into a chair.

“I knew you would see reason.” Yuzu beamed at him, the shadow of promised violence evaporating. “As you were saying, Ajuga-chan?”

“They are not perfectly balanced yet, but they are not about to collapse either. The Realms should hold for now and I can focus on other things, like trying to find Mama and the twins to make sure they’re safe.”

Szayel glanced at her hopefully, before Yoruichi took over once more.

“I had a lovely visit with some select Espada on my latest trip. Aizen is holding Karin at the Palace. Gin managed to get that much out to Starrk’s household, but Aizen is cloaking her presence with his Zanpakuto. He’s also holding the twins there, but so far, they seem to be fine. Jushiro told me that he saw both Vindula and Abisara yesterday. Vindula visited him before I arrived and he reported she was as cheerful as ever, if a little sad. He saw Abisara as he was returning to the Palace with Unohana. Jushiro thinks he is working with the 4th Division’s Taichou, something about assisting with monitoring the pregnant women.”

“Pregnant women?” Hachi asked curiously.

“It’s a plague, I tell you,” Szayel perked up, but only slightly. “Before we left for the North, we had twenty-one confirmed pregnancies, all with varying due dates. So far we believe that the population has adjusted to the higher reiatsu levels of their Arrancar Claim holders, and on top of that, it would seem that our population’s mixed couples have much higher rates of fertility than couples that consist of two Shinigami and two Arrancar.”

“Well, that explains how you managed to knock Nel-chan up in only a half dozen times,” Hiyori told a flustered Renji before she gave him a wide grin with more fang than Ajuga thought necessary. Her other aunt, Rukia, gave the pig-tailed Vizard a sharp frown before sighing and trying to get the conversation back on track.

“Alright, but the difference in reiatsu levels between Karin and Grimmjow is far greater than between these two. How did she get pregnant so fast?”

“Her Royal blood,” Yoruichi answered, taking a stuffed chicken breast from the serving dish in front of her and eyeing it critically, before taking another. “Obviously, those of Royal decent are often exceedingly powerful, and it would make continuing those bloodlines difficult if they couldn’t get their partners pregnant, or become pregnant themselves. Combine her increased Royal fertility with your theory of ‘opposites’ attracting, and it should almost be more surprising she wasn’t pregnant the first night she shared Grimmjow’s bed.”

“We figured human blood was a factor as well, increasing it even further,” Szayel added, while Ichigo gave the other Espada a dirty look. “This is why Orihime conceived faster than the others. She was already acclimated to high levels of reiatsu, probably because she spent all that time in Hueco Mundo before the War and because she was around a number of high-powered Arrancar, specifically Ulquiorra Cifer.”

“How many of the Arrancar are pregnant?” Ryuuken interjected, before Szayel could get going on his favourite topic, even as exhausted as he was. Nemu poured her mate a glass of something that smelled as if the chef had sweetened it with honey or sugar and filled a plate for the worn-out scientist.

“Five of the twenty-one women last I counted, but more may have emerged in our absence from the city. Harribel is one of them.”

The Quincy seemed to ponder this as he pushed a forkful of chicken and vegetables around his plate.

“So that will be four fewer Arrancar we need to worry over. Are any of the pregnant women due soon?”

“Only Soi Fon. Rangiku and Tatsuki’s due dates aren’t for several months, and do not think for a second that pregnancy would slow an Arrancar female down,” Szayel cautioned. “If anything, they get more aggressive towards outsiders, to deter others from coming near them.”

This was news to Ajuga and she warily regarded Nel from under her lashes. The former Third certainly didn’t look aggressive, if the way she cuddled up to Renji at the dinner table was any indication of her state of mind, but Harribel had mentioned never to take a pregnant Arrancar lightly.

“Tatsuki’s pregnant?” Ichigo sputtered, his fingers clutching his drinking glass.

“Yes, it was her pregnancy that suggested to us that humans were far more fertile than Shinigami. She informed me that she conceived almost immediately, once she and her mate stopped using protection,” Szayel replied.

“They planned for the child then,” Ryuuken commented. Yuzu, just as surprised as her older brother, reacted far differently, appearing overjoyed at the news.

“That is wonderful!” she gushed. “Who’s the father? Do I know him?”

“Tesra. The brat who used you as a mop after Nnoitra finished with you,” Grimmjow answered, looking at Ichigo as he did so.

“I see,” Ichigo’s expression grew angrier and Ajuga suddenly feared that the Quincy doctor would be picking shards of glass out of her uncle’s hands before the dessert course.

“Leave it. The kid’s got a good head on his shoulders. Besides, she _asked_ him to Claim her. Woman’s got him wrapped so far around her finger he needs her hands to do anything,” Grimmjow chuckled. “And you heard him right. They planned for and wanted the upcoming cub.”

“It’s true,” Renji agreed, putting whatever fears her uncle had to rest. “I was in the room when they did the ultrasound to confirm it. She was beyond thrilled, and yeah, she’s got Tesra eating out of the palm of her hand. He’s like a puppy on a leash with her. Seriously, I have never seen anyone so devoted.”

Ichigo still looked unhappy, but he got over it quickly once his wife pinched him and gave him the same sort of look Ajuga had seen her mother give her father when she expected him to act like an adult. Yoruichi cleared her throat and steered the conversation in a safer direction.

“Soi Fon is going to co-ordinate everything with my contacts on the other side since she knows them and they know her. Starrk is confident that when we are ready to move, we will have he and Lilynette, Harribel and Ulquiorra on our side, especially once he tells the Fourth Espada that he and his mate are now of Royal blood, since Diaemus here said yes to Ajuga’s request.”

Diaemus blanched as he realized what that meant. If Aizen figured out what had happened, he would imprison Orihime and would probably have to kill Ulquiorra to take her into custody. Ajuga felt for Diaemus, understanding his fear better than anyone else in the room did, for she was already in that particular boat. Aizen already knew about her mother, but unlike Karin, Orihime had no defences that would work against the usurper if he chose to force himself on her.

“Aizen doesn’t know that Ajuga choose a Consort when she assumed the Throne, so we can count ourselves lucky,” Yoruichi said before moving forward with her report. “Starrk’s not certain what Barragan will do once things go down, at least not until one side or the other looks as if they’re going to come out on top, and as long as we get Nnoitra interested in a battle, he will stay out of the way.” Yoruichi announced.

“I can deal with him,” Kenpachi spoke up with a wide, somewhat crazy grin and patted the ragged-looking blade tucked into his belt. “I got that bug’s battle right here.”

“Yeah, he was fun to play with, wasn’t he Ken-chan?”

Yachiru’s bright smile made her adoptive father’s bloodthirsty statement seem even creepier.

“Damn right, and I bet he’s gotten stronger too,” Kenpachi agreed. “I hope he’ll put up a decent fight… would hate to get all riled up for nothin’.”

“What about Yammy?” Nel asked, before the Shinigami sitting next to her shifted in his chair and balled his fists on either side of his plate.

“He’s mine,” Renji growled resolutely. “I’ve a score to settle with that one.”

Nel looked as if she wanted to argue with him. Then she paused, before resignation clouded her lovely features. The former Third reached up and gently tucked a long strand of her mate’s hair out of the way so that she could whisper something in his ear. Ajuga saw him place his hand over hers.

“There are still the Numeros and those they have Claimed,” Hachi reminded them, tapping his fingers together before he picked up his roll and began to butter it.

“My contacts will set up several diversions, to spread out the Numeros and get them to investigate, but I don’t think it will be enough,” Yoruichi sighed. “The Shinigami will be the ones investigating. As Jushiro said, it’s almost a pity the Swarm no longer has any reason to remain,” Yoruichi sighed.

“Maybe not,” Hana spoke up and regarded Ajuga and Diaemus. “That General you keep running into, Zee, said the Swarm was just as worried about the balance of the Realms as we were, right?”

“Yes, he was pretty upset with me for not ‘sitting on the chair’ as he called it. It was the only thing he seemed to care about, but after seeing the mess Aizen’s made...”

Ajuga broke eye contact with Hana, staring down at her empty plate and feeling a bit guilty. She’d tried to do the best she could with the Swarm’s Realm and if things were out of whack with the Realms belonging to the humans, the ‘heaven’ governed by the Swarm’s Queen was in utter shambles, barely holding itself together. Zee’s rage at her, at her mother and at Aizen seemed justified, now that she knew the extent of the damage the General’s Realm had sustained. Her friend’s next words echoed Ajuga’s unhappy observations.

“As long as Aizen lives, there will be no peace. We already know the Swarm hates him and wants him dead. We also know the Swarm is keyed into and can recognize the Spirit King, or in this case, the Spirit Queen. I say we have a summit.”

“You propose that we contact the Swarm, and get them to attack the city one more time, on a date of our choosing,” Diaemus concluded, finishing off Hana’s proposal the way he usually did when the three of them worked out their plans.

“Exactly,” Hana said and grinned at her friends. “I bet we can even find a way to get them into the Seireitei so they can attack from the inside.”

Renji and Szayel sat up straighter and looked at one another, then at Nemu, who placidly ate her rice, but before either one of them could do more than gape at one another and open their mouths, Hiyori, who had remained silent and spent most of the meal eating and glaring hatefully at Hana for some odd reason, spoke up.

“Che, you are fucking retarded!” the pig-tailed Vizard snorted. “What are you going to do? Are ya going to find some dumb Locust that’s still fluttering around and go ‘buzz buzz’ to its face and hope it understands?”

Hana favoured Hiyori with a disdainful sniff in response.

“They are of a Hive-mind, and they understand us just fine. We have communicated with them several times. But then, I guess someone with your limited intelligence is barely capable of conversation in the first place.”

Hiyori’s face went red in rage and Ajuga stared at her normally calm friend. It wasn’t like Hana to be so rude and aggressive. Obviously, something had happened between the two while she’d been busy and it hadn’t been good.

“There _are_ those almost humanoid ones with the top knots, the ones who spoke with a rather buzzing accent,” Hachi pointed out, frowning at his newfound apprentice for rising to the bait. He then shot a warning look at Hiyori, who ignored her fellow Vizard.

“Those are the Generals,” Diaemus informed him.

“Zee is one of them,” Ajuga added, “and he doesn’t speak with the buzz. He’s also fast enough to escape Papa.”

Grimmjow made a face at the comparison and Ichigo seemed surprised at that, but otherwise said nothing, even though Rukia and Renji both looked as if they wanted to rib her father a bit over that revelation.

“Incapable of speech!” Hiyori screeched and jumped up, almost throwing her chair out of the way. She ignored Ajuga’s father and uncle and forced everyone to stare at her, afraid she was going to launch herself across the dinner table at Hana. “I’ll show you speech, you fucking traitorous bitch from…”

“Sarugaki Hiyori!” Yuzu barked, the blonde woman standing up just as quickly and leaning forward to confront the Vizard. The entire table, save for her husband, jumped in their seats. “I have told you before to watch your language and respect the sanctity of my home. I will not tell you again. You can keep your temper in check, or you may leave. Please decide.”

Hiyori cringed and slowly sank back into her chair with a mumbled ‘yes Ishida-san’, while Ajuga’s aunt turned towards Hana, who hung her head.

“And _you_ should know better than to throw an insult at the dinner table, Ise Hana.”

Yuzu frowned at the young Shinigami, who appeared immediately repentant. “I know your mother _and_ I know she and Jushiro-san taught you better manners. You’re also a representative of your Division. Please act like the officer you are.”

“Sorry Yuzu-san. You are correct, it was unbecoming of me.” Hana apologized with a bow, before she sat down, doing a good job of not looking in Hiyori’s direction.

“So you can communicate with the Swarm?” Rukia inquired of her niece-by-marriage, leaning forward and bringing the conversation back on topic. The hybrid girl had never heard Kuchiki Byakuya speak, but she imagined that he must sound a great deal like his younger sister. There wasn’t much of a family resemblance, but her Aunt Rukia held herself in the same, authoritative way she’d seen Byakuya act when she’d stolen onto the Kuchiki Estate as a child, for a visit or for a calligraphy lesson.

“Yes, Mama did it using Mushi, a Portal Scarab, so we know that the Swarm, while not being able to speak, can understand us just fine.”

“You have a pet Portal Scarab?” Yoruichi seemed very surprised about that and Ajuga shrugged.

“Mushi? Yeah, Papa and Starrk-ji brought her back after a mission,” Ajuga confessed. “They’re keeping her in a pen in one of the larger storage facilities.”

“Was a pain getting her back to the city too,” Grimmjow snarked before a wicked grin stretched across his face and he turned to look at her uncle and laughed, “Your sister makes for great bug bait… damn thing followed us all the way home!”

Ichigo scowled and cuffed her father on the back of his head to stop him from laughing, but all that accomplished was a ‘you hit like a girl’ taunt and more sniggering, this time involving most of the rest of the table. Ryuuken was the sole exception; the Quincy kept working on his meal, letting the emotions of the others wash around him in the same way water would flow around a large rock dropped in the center of a river. Ajuga had no idea what made a Quincy different from other humans, but the first thing she’d noticed was that they didn’t seem equipped with a sense of humour.

“Let’s take it out back after dinner and we’ll just see who hits like a girl!” Ichigo snapped at her Papa, ignoring the thin-lipped looks his wife, Yoruichi and Hiyori sent his way as he challenged the Espada to a duel. She wasn’t certain if her uncle realized he was already hip-deep in the grave he was digging for himself, but he didn’t seem to care.

“Ha, you are _on_ , Shinigami,” Grimmjow responded and gave her uncle a show of fang. “Just don’t whine like a baby when I kick your ass, _again_.”

“If anyone’s ass is going to be kicked, it’ll be _yours_!”

“He really hasn’t changed that much has he?” Renji asked Rukia, leaning over to see the petite Shinigami.

“Not as much as I would have liked and it isn’t for lack of trying,” her small aunt sighed. “Oi, Ichigo, are you going to eat that?” She didn’t wait for answer before she snitched a bite of broccoli from his plate with her chopsticks and gamely popped it in her mouth.

“Hey, that’s mine!” Ichigo rounded on his wife, who blinked up at her husband innocently with her big, indigo eyes.

“That looks like fun!” Grimmjow grinned and plucked a piece of chicken from Ichigo’s plate as well.

“What the hell!” her uncle shouted, finding himself beset by sneak thieves on both sides.

“Well, you seem to be doing more growling than eating,” Rukia declared and grabbed a bit of rice before Ajuga’s uncle could pull his plate out of range of her chopsticks, only to have Grimmjow help himself to another piece of chicken.

“Yoruichi-san?”

The Shihoin heir, finishing off her vegetables, turned her golden gaze on Diaemus as he addressed her. Ajuga realized that she was still very hungry and that somehow, food had materialized on her plate while she’d been engrossed in the various conversations around the table. Diaemus had a fork poised in his hand, leaning over his half-devoured meal and figured he’d obtained dinner for the both of them.

Ajuga knew she had to be truly tired if she couldn’t remember to eat, but Hana’s idea of using the Swarm dogged her and while the older members of her extended family and her father bickered, she considered its merits. She really didn’t want to deal with Zee or his troops. The girl had seen more than enough of the General during her captivity. If she did what she was supposed to do and fixed the Realms, _maybe_ she could get him to agree to one last raid on the Seireitei, but doing so was a long shot. She had no idea how to contact him either, or get his attention and the usual method, bleeding, didn’t appeal to her much.

“Yes?”

“This Consort bond… it is breakable, right?” he inquired and for some reason, his question rankled Ajuga.

“Death is your only way out,” Yoruichi told him and took a large bite from what had to be her third dinner roll.

“I see. That’s something to think about.” Diaemus sighed.

“Why?” Ajuga asked him suspiciously.

“I am trying to decide if death is preferable to being related to your family,” he commented.

She felt her eye twitch, although she wasn’t certain if it was because of his comment, the fact she was starting to agree with him, or the state of her besieged uncle as he tried to fend off his wife, brother-in-law, and now Yachiru too, from stealing food from his plate, an endeavour seemingly doomed to failure.

“Papa, you know what Mama’s going to do to you when she finds out you behaved like a child at the dinner table,” Ajuga reminded him. Grimmjow froze as a look of mortification and terror descended on the Espada. Rukia laughed at his change in expression and Yuzu finally reined in Yachiru with an offer of dessert.

“You _are_ whipped, aren’t you?” Ichigo asked, before yelping as his wife discreetly smacked his knuckles with the flat of her butter knife and made the assault look elegant.

_Yup, she’s definitely Bya-san’s little sister,_ Ajuga decided, picking up her chopsticks and tending to the gaping hole that had formed in her stomach over the last few days.

The motley group spent the rest of the meal discussing the news that Yoruichi had brought back yesterday, but there wasn’t much that they could do until she made another foray into the Soul Society. Szayel hadn’t managed to learn anything truly useful yet and that was the real brake on any progress. Urahara Kisuke’s salvaged notes were, according to the frustrated Espada, ‘an unorganized disaster.’ If the late exiled Taichou had used _any_ kind of filing system, it had died with him or hadn’t existed in the first place. Ajuga had no idea what a _‘pile of inky foolscap scrawled with the stream-of-consciousness ravings of a loon too in love with abbreviations to know what was good for him’_ looked like, but Szayel had apparently been trying to wade through it since he’d arrived.

One thing Ajuga couldn’t ignore was whatever was going on between Hana and Hiyori. Despite Yuzu’s warning, the two took to sniping at each other every chance they got. It wasn’t like Hana to act like that. Upon closer inspection, she noticed how tired Hana seemed, fuelling her crankiness. Evidently, Szayel wasn’t the only one hard at work.

_What has she been up to while I was busy?_ Ajuga wondered and she grew concerned for her friend. _What has that massive Vizard been teaching her? Is making a barrier that much work?_

When her aunt Yuzu rose, disappeared and returned from the kitchen with a tray of small cakes covered in fresh strawberries, Renji finally spoke up and said that he and Nel had an announcement. Grimmjow immediately interrupted the redhead and dryly asked something along the lines of ‘let me guess, you’re having a baby,’ before Nel had given her father a cool look. Ajuga swore that her Papa began calculating the distance from his chair to the door to the butler’s pantry, when Renji looked at his mate and informed the table that he and Nel would be getting married as soon as they could. That led to a lot of ‘congratulations’ around the table and a few toasts, with Nel flushing prettily as her mate pressed a kiss to her cheek. To Ajuga it seemed like a waste of time. They were obviously mated, but this was a Shinigami thing, so she nodded along with the rest and tried to wheedle whatever chicken was left from her Aunt Yuzu in lieu of sweets.

After dinner, two of the staff members entered to clear the table, prompting an evacuation of the dining room. Ajuga had never had servants of any kind; everyone had taken turns at washing dishes at the Estate, save for Starrk and he was only excused because he had a tendency to fall asleep at the sink. It felt strange to leave the work for someone else to do, but at the moment, Ajuga was tired enough to let Diaemus grab her elbow and drag her away. The lot of them followed Ryuuken down a flight of stairs concealed by a door that appeared to be part of one of the hallway walls. Those led to a large, shielded training room somewhere under the mansion. The only ones missing were Szayel and Nemu. The Espada’s mate had ushered the flagging Espada upstairs to their room to obey Yuzu’s order to sleep. Hachi finally finished healing her uncle and her father of the remainder of their bruises and cuts, but gave them a stern warning about going too far with their bout.

“No Resurreccións and no masks. The shielding on this room is not as strong as you might believe and I will not allow Ushōda-san to waste his energy making it so,” Ryuuken cautioned sternly. “Break anything, and you will be the ones doing the repair work.”

Both men looked at him in annoyance, but reluctantly agreed on the principle that it _was_ his house and therefore he could set the rules, and neither man wanted to pull an arrow out of his body.

“Ready for another round, Shinigami?” Grimmjow taunted.

Her uncle sneered in return.

“Faugh! You’re just upset that I can kick your ass with my eyes closed!”

“Get him Ichi-chan!” Yachiru cheered happily, waving her small hands at him.

“I get to take on the winner!” Kenpachi called out after his daughter.

“Ready?”

Renji asked Ichigo this, acting as the ‘start-man’ for the match.

Ichigo nodded and adjusted his grip on Zangetsu’s hilt.

“Are you ready?” Renji asked Grimmjow, who showed nearly all his teeth while he looked his opponent up and down.

“Bring it, wuss!”

“Fight!” Renji shouted, leaping backwards and using Shunpo to land next to Nel, pulling his future wife into a tight hug as they settled at a safe distance to watch the fight.

It started with a bang and the violence only went up from there. The two men went at each other, increasing their speeds with each minute, until their movements appeared blurred. Most of the cheering came from Kenpachi and Yachiru, but Nel, Rukia and Renji threw in some shouted encouragement, as did Ajuga and Hana. Yoruichi spent her time critiquing their techniques, while labelling their speeds ‘absolutely pathetic, the work of rank amateurs and Academy dropouts.’

“Damn it Yoruichi, I know how to fight!” Ichigo shouted back at her, diverting his attention from the battle for a fraction of a second. He brought Zangetsu down in a diagonal movement aimed at Grimmjow’s midsection at the same time the Espada brought Pantera up to block it…

It was a second that ended in disaster.

Everyone stared in shock as Grimmjow’s reiatsu suddenly plunged to nothing in the blink of an eye. Pantera fell from the Arrancar’s nerveless fingers, clattering across the floor. Zangetsu connected squarely with the Sixth’s torso, sending a scarlet fountain spraying across the room’s white tiles.

Absolute silence fell on the chamber, only broken a few seconds later when Ichigo cried, “What happened?” His hand froze on the hilt of his Zanpakuto, not daring to withdraw it lest he make the bleeding worse. “Grimmjow! GRIMMJOW!”

His rival didn’t, or couldn’t, answer. The Sixth was completely unresponsive, even as blood continued to gush from the wound to pool around the two combatants. Ajuga stared at her father in horror, too stunned to shriek. She had never seen him injured and no one seemed to have any idea as to what had just occurred.

“SHIT!” Ichigo cursed, grabbed the catatonic Espada with his free arm before he could hit the ground and shunpo’ed them to Hachi’s side. The Vizard, already chanting, surrounded the damaged Arrancar within a golden box that looked suspiciously like the shield that Diaemus’ mother used to ‘reject’ things like broken bones and deep cuts, after Ajuga’s uncle extracted his blade. Ajuga scampered towards them, intent on getting to her father, only to have Diaemus pull her back when Ryuuken strode over to survey the damage.

Confusion ensued among the rest of them. The blow should have been easy to dodge or deflect and yet Grimmjow had stood there and taken it. Ichigo‘s Zanpakuto had dug deeply into his side, severing muscle but not quite going deep enough to hit any major organs. The hybrid girl had no idea why her father had gone limp, nor why he his reiatsu was almost nonexistent.

“Karin,” Nel breathed, her soft voice cutting through the rising clamour. “Oh no, no, no!”

“What about Karin? What does she have to do with this?”

Ichigo whirled around to face the only other Espada in the room as she pressed her hand to her lips in dismay. Renji tightened his arms around Nel and she looked as if she wanted to cry as she provided an explanation.

“She drained him, most likely in self-defence. It’s a reflex for a fully mated pair of Hollows,” Nel explained, and left it at that. She had no need to go further.

Ajuga’s legs suddenly felt as if they no longer wanted to keep her upright and she was only dimly aware of Hana shouting at her as she sank into a crouch, not wanting to believe it but unable to refute the evident that lay in a stupor behind Hachi’s healing shield.

Had it only been a few months ago that Harribel had told her of this, on the edge of that frozen lake? It was one thing to hear about such a frightening side effect of a mutual Claim, but to see it, to know that her mother had done _this_ in a bid to save herself...

Somewhere above her Diaemus was speaking worriedly with a suddenly sober Yoruichi, while Hana shook her shoulder to get Ajuga to look at her. Meanwhile, the collective mood in the underground chamber plummeted from gleefulness into despair. There was only one reason why Karin would panic enough to drain her mate, and none of them wanted to say it aloud.

“We should tend to his wounds first. The rest can wait.”

Ryuuken seemed to be the only one still collected enough to make any sort of decision, which he proceeded to do. “Get him to bed. Hachi, I’d like your assistance upstairs, please. The rest of you should go about your business and leave us to tend to him. Crowding us won’t help. We’ll inform you when we’re done.”

No one thought to disobey the Quincy’s grim directive, and the collected refugees gave the two men the room they needed. Rukia immediately hauled Ajuga’s white-faced uncle away to wash the blood from him. Renji gently drew Nel back up the stairs, encouraging her to take an after-dinner walk with him. Kenpachi stared down at Grimmjow’s limp form, and then turned on his heel. He hoisted Yachiru onto his shoulder and then looked at Hiyori to indicate she should follow. For once, the skinny, mouthy woman did as ordered.

Ajuga wanted to stay put, to see if her father would be all right in the hands of these two men, but Diaemus, Hana and Yoruichi all got a grip on her and pulled her to her feet. The struggle was brief, as she was too tired to fend off all the three of them. She knew she wasn’t thinking clearly and that her body needed sleep, but as her two friends and her newfound mentor hustled her out of the training room, she decided that she would try to use the Throne’s powers to try to determine her mother’s state, as it was the only thing she could do under the circumstances.

_I’m the damned Spirit Queen and I still can’t help her. What good is this power if I can’t stop that bastard with it?_

.

“Yuzu-chan…”

Ishida Ryuuken pulled on a pair of latex gloves and looked expectantly at his wife as he moved his patient’s jacket aside to reveal the full extent of the wound. Hachi’s barrier had put a ‘stop’ on the bleeding, acting as a full-body tourniquet and it would be best to get this stitched up quickly. Thankfully, he was out, so there was no need to have to calculate a dose of anaesthesia. His young wife walked up to him with a medical kit in hand.

“Right here,” she declared as he removed his arms from the confines of the Kido wall, quickly passing him the first of the tools he would need, which were a bottle of disinfectant and several gauze pads. While everyone else had panicked, Yuzu had gone for the kit, and he gave her a brief, thankful look for keeping her head. She was the best assistant he had ever trained, a wonderful cook and could make an excellent cup of coffee as well.

“I could heal him,” Hachi declared, his fingers twitching as if ex-Kido Corps Fukutaichou wanted to make the hand signs and recite the spell.

The physician shook his silver head and regarded the Vizard through his lenses, before plunging his hands, the bottle and gauze back into the barrier to get started. The day that a sufficiently trained Quincy couldn’t waltz through a Shinigami’s Kido would be the day that Ryuuken ate the silver cross he kept at his wrist.

“No, save your energy. Just keep this thing up and let me proceed while you’ve suspended his biological processes. This is nothing that stitches, bandages, and a few nights of uninterrupted sleep won’t cure. He also has his regenerative abilities on which to fall back. Mark my words. This one will be cursing Kurosaki in the morning, with gusto.”

“He used to be much worse,” Yuzu interjected, and then regarded the unconscious Arrancar sadly. “I always knew he loved Karin-chan, but I never realized how much until now.”

Ryuuken set to work, cleaning, stitching, and dressing the deep gash. When the physician finished, Hachi dissolved the Kido and made certain Grimmjow was breathing properly. Then he picked their patient up and took him back to his room, while the Quincy trod to the closest powder room and washed his hands after stripping the gloves, tossing them in the waste bin. He’d done what he could for Grimmjow’s body, but there was little he could do for what truly ailed the Hollow. It was unlikely that anything but Aizen’s death and Karin’s rescue would help the Arrancar’s soul and his reiatsu would have to come back on its own.

If anyone ought to know, it would be him. The loss of Katagiri, his first and truly only wife, still caused piercing chest pains at times and there were no words in any language strong enough to describe the agony of losing his son. He’d lost his parents and Masaki-chan and his current roster of questionably sane houseguests was the result of not wanting to fail the last of his former betrothed’s children. He’d done what he could for Ichigo and Yuzu, and Masaki’s granddaughter had certainly left him at a loss for words upon first meeting her.

The archer stared at his reflection, before reaching towards the wall and turning out the light and exiting the small room.

Only Karin remained as an unfulfilled obligation… and Ishida Ryuuken was a man of his word.


	70. Under Kami

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not a happy chapter

She’d gone over sixty hours without real slumber and Aizen had smugly regarded her over lunch, pleased that his gambit of sleep deprivation appeared to be working. The tyrant had come home for the noon meal so that he could join her. He had promised she would be under him by tonight, and if she didn’t get any rest soon her body would collapse against her will, allowing just that. She couldn’t even ask the twins to guard her while she slept, for Aizen had them elsewhere, cutting off her access to two more sets of eyes. The chief gardener had taken Vindula under his wing for the day, the two at work in another section of the Palace. She wasn’t certain, but she thought she’d heard the little winged girl say something about wanting to ask the man if he had a pair of gloves that would fit her small hands, since her fingers itched. Then again, Karin told herself she might have been imaging it. Auditory hallucinations were a side effect of this kind of torture.

Abisara was with Unohana yet again, going over more of his father’s equipment. The pink-haired boy had looked relieved to get out of the Palace and back into the Science Division, if only for a day. That left Karin to entertain Aizen with her increasingly frazzled wits and when he left she felt wrung out by his visit.

Karin was too tired to be afraid, and thus was determined not to let him win. She dozed lightly, getting a small semblance of rest, and Gin let her do that. It helped a little, enough that she wasn’t testy with the twins when they got back from their day. It was a relief to learn that Aizen had called a meeting of the Divisions, so neither he, Unohana or Gin would be with them for the charade of a ‘big family dinner’ that evening, which meant she could rest. Vindula and Abisara joined her on her balcony. Or rather, the two played on the balcony while Karin slept for one measly hour before her alarm went off, indicating someone had entered the room.

It was a servant, the woman not even looking her direction as she set the plates down for dinner. With a bow towards the children on the balcony, she left, never noticing Karin’s huddled form on the bed.

“Come eat, Karin-san!” Vindula called cheerfully after the woman had left.

Rising groggily, Karin stumbled over to the twins. Abisara didn’t seem interested in eating and stared up at her fearfully, a surprising amount of dread in their green depths, which instantly put her on alert. His eyes flickered away as he mumbled something to his sister, which Karin didn’t quite catch.

“Oh, that’s right Karin-san, I have something for you,” Vindula cried, and rushed back out through the doors to the outside. When she came back, she carried something that gleamed in the late afternoon light. “Kami-sama helped me pick it out for you this morning when we went to the market to get some new seeds to plant today. He is letting me pick a spot in the gardens for my very own. I get to have a garden in Kami-sama’s Palace!”

Vindula practically squealed in delight as she drew the object out from behind her back. “Anyhow, he said I should give it to you at dinner. What do you think?”

Karin stared at the bracelet, but at least had enough presence of mind left to feebly congratulate Vindula on being awarded a garden. She mumbled something along the lines of it being a great responsibility and an honour, before she turned to the girl’s brother.

“So Kami chose this.”

The boy nodded his head but refused to look her in the eye and bit his lip. So he knew what it was too, even if Vindula was oblivious to just how dangerous the finely crafted, silver trinket was. All the little girl knew was that it was beautiful, and something Aizen had commissioned, probably ordering some poor merchant to display it prominently before leading Vindula to his shop to pick it out. She couldn’t be certain if it was the same bracelet that Gin had showed her the other day, but that hardly mattered anymore.

Two stalking panthers faced each other, with the hinges nearly invisible where the two beasts met and the clasp at the spot where the panthers’ tails came together. The design was an obvious slap in the face and reminder that she might never see Grimmjow or her daughter again, of what she stood to lose if Aizen won.

She hated it on sight.

“Did you help with the gift?” she asked him, knowing the child’s acumen with machines.

“Yes, Karin-san,” he admitted, finally turning to look her way with sad eyes. “Please, accept it.”

The boy’s voice turned pleading and Karin’s eyes returned to the ‘gift.’ Vindula’s smile had faded when she realized that Karin wasn’t happy about the present and Abisara’s fright grew the longer she let the bracelet sit there on the table. Had Aizen threatened him, promised him some sort of punishment if he couldn’t get her to put it on? If Vindula hadn’t been here she would have asked, but the girl was and she wasn’t going to put Abisara on the spot. The terror in the boy’s eyes was enough of an answer. Aizen had threatened the child before and Karin knew he would continue to do so for as long as he held the three of them in the Royal Suite.

_So this is how the bastard is going to do it. He plans on using Szayel_ _’_ _s children to chain me,_ she thought in a mixture of hopelessness and disgust.

She was both mentally and physically drained, and she knew that Aizen could easily get a similar bracelet on her when they got back from the meeting. Even if she slept for the next few hours it wouldn’t be enough. Her ability to react to any sudden attack was more than compromised at this stage. He or Gin would be on her and have her sealed before her mind would even register the alarm had gone off.

“Thank you, Vindula-chan, it is lovely. Abisara-kun, would you put it on please,” she requested.

“Of course, Karin-san.”

Abisara picked up the bracelet, but didn’t put it on her right away, clearly reluctant to do this to her.

“O-Tou-san designed these,” he commented, before slipping it on her wrist and clicking the clasp into place.

Karin expected to feel drained of her reiatsu, or trapped, but the bracelet didn’t do that. To her surprise, her ‘sight’ disappeared. That aspect of wearing it would be a relief, especially if she was around Aizen. Keeping her glasses on when she was sleeping was a pain. Thankfully, she could still sense Abisara and Vindula. When she tried to cast a quick, small Kido spell as a test, she found her reiatsu didn’t move as she directed it, even though she could still feel it. The bracelet denied her the ability to manipulate reiatsu, but her body hadn’t been drained, nor had her reiatsu been sealed. It was still there, as strong as ever. Anyone could feel her if Aizen let them, but she couldn’t access it herself.

_Of course, sealing it or draining it would make it harder, if not impossible, for Aizen to impregnate me,_ she remembered.

She tucked the children into bed after dinner and went straight to bed herself to finally get some sleep. Maybe, just maybe, he would leave her alone for a while if she was sleeping, and it wouldn’t hurt to regain some of her strength.

She didn’t know what time Aizen returned from his meeting. Since the alarm net had been set before the bracelet had cut off her abilities, and because her reiatsu levels were just fine, she still felt the alarm go off. Judging by how dark it was, she figured it for some time around eight, maybe even as late as ten. Her room lacked a timepiece of any sort. Regardless, it was sometime after when he would have partaken of his own wife. If the meeting hadn’t been a long one, which he had mockingly assured her it wouldn’t be, then he had probably let her catch an extra hour or two of sleep. The rest had definitely helped to clear some of the cobwebs out of her brain, but it wasn’t enough to address the entire deficit that weighed her down.

_Well wasn_ _’_ _t that nice of him,_ she internally bitched, though even her emotions felt blunted, worn down, as if the edges of them had been rubbed smooth with sandpaper.

Aizen wore nothing more than a plain yukata, one he hadn’t even bothered to tie closed. Fortunate, the front flaps fell in such a way as to hide him from her, but she knew it wasn’t going to stay that way for long.

“Ah, my dear Karin,” he said and smiled down at her in the same way a predator would smile at a trapped rabbit, “Did I not promise you that you would be beneath me in two days’ time? I keep my promises, as you will soon learn.”

Karin gave him a nasty glare.

“Funny, I thought you’d have more class than to use children to accomplish it,” she retorted. Her gaze shifted to Gin as the man hesitantly entered the room, clearly not wanting to be there but unable to say ‘no.’

“I refuse have Gin touch me so you can get your sick jollies!” she hissed at Aizen.

“It’s not your choice, I am afraid. Gin, if you will please.”

Gin sent her a sorrowful look as he crossed the room. Karin felt a flash of panic as the man’s hands pulled the blankets away from her. That panic turned to rage and then terror as Gin took hold of her ankle. The knowledge that she was about to be raped, by not one but two men and had no way to defend herself hit her in one great rush. Without thinking, she reacted, lashing out with anything and everything she had.

“GET AWAY FROM ME!” she roared.

Gin screamed in pain as he was flung back across the room to land against the far wall. The last of the Cero she fired burned the wall. The massive burst of energy was subsequently absorbed by the Palace wards before it could do too much damage. Gin lurched to his feet and clutched his scorched and bleeding side. The blast had just clipped him, which was a good thing. He was so weakened that the full fury of her desperation, rage and fear might have done the servant in completely had she scored a direct hit.

Aizen appeared angry at first, before his expression went from ‘mad’ to ‘amused’ and he laughed. Reacting instinctively, she flung another Cero towards him, putting every ounce of power behind it to get rid of the threat. He deflected it with a raised hand and laughed again, louder this time.

Her available well of power suddenly dried up. To her horror, Karin realized what she’d just done and dove down her Claim, trying in vain to find her mate. All of that power had been his. She hadn’t drawn on his strength since she’d had to take on Nnoitra years ago and she had almost forgotten she could access it. She remembered what it had done to him then, and she could only pray he was alright now. When there was no response, she knew she’d drained him completely and that he was most likely unconscious.

“You are dismissed for now Gin. Get my wife to tend to your injuries,” he commanded his slave and dismissed the half-starved man with a gesture.

“Hai, Kami-sama.” Gin’s voice betrayed how much pain he was in and he crawled out of the room, blood soaking his white clothing and dripping between his fingers to stain the floor. Some of the fear she had for her mate shifted to Gin in a moment of remorse. Karin had almost killed him in her panic. It hadn’t been his fault Aizen was a sick son of a bitch.

“I suspected you had a full mating Claim, given your unique abilities. I hope Grimmjow wasn’t in a dire predicament when you drew upon his powers.” Aizen chuckled and stalked forwards, looming over her as she pressed her back against the headboard of the bed.

Kami, she hoped so too. She hoped that someone was there to find him before anything happened to him and Karin prayed that he hadn’t been fighting. Aizen gave her a minute to compose herself and she shot him a hateful look in response. Had he orchestrated the whole event just to check for such a thing? She was completely defenceless now, having drained her only other pool of power and at his mercy.

Aizen caught her chin with one hand, holding her gently, but firmly when she tried to flinch away. He tipped her head so she had to look up into his eyes. What met her were the eyes of a monster that threatened to eat her soul.

“I am going to use you tonight and fill your womb with my seed and you cannot prevent it. The only thing that will determine whether I send for my wife to tend to you afterwards, and _if_ you ever get to see those brats again, is your co-operation. So you can continue to defy me and learn what it means to be broken, or you can undress and let me mount you on our own like the brood mare you really are.”

Aizen let her chin go. “The choice is entirely up to you, _Karin-chan_.”

She shuddered, her gaze going towards the room where Abisara and Vindula were sleeping. It really wasn’t a choice, and they both knew it. It was like asking someone trapped in a burning house if they wanted to take the corridor engulfed in flames to escape or take the one with holes in the floor over which one could jump to get to the end. One choice meant certain death. With the other, one had at least a chance at survival.

“If I lay for you willingly, will you promise not to hurt Abisara-kun or Vindula-chan? No games, no mental or physical torture? You will completely leave them alone unless it’s to intervene to save them?”

He seemed to find her attempt at negotiating laughable, or at least entertaining.

“You have my word, for however long it takes to breed my heir,” he assured her. “I will even agree not to hunt your family down until I get what I want from either you or my wife.”

“Szayel…” she started.

“Is not up for discussion. He will suffer for betraying me, until the end of his days.”

It was more than she had initially hoped for. Thankful that she’d managed to patch up some of the holes in the metaphorical floor she’d been forced to walk, Karin let the yukata slide from her body and pushed it aside, to show her agreement with the devil’s bargain she’d just made. Giving her one last smirk, Aizen let his own garment fall to the floor, revealing his bare body and fully erect manhood. She immediately looked away, having no desire to see him, while covering her breasts with an arm, not wanting him to see her. He crawled onto the bed towards her, the mattress dipping with his weight.

_Is this what Rangiku feels every time Nnoitra wants to have his way with her? Byakuya? Unohana, who is forced to lay with him every morning and night? How do they live like this, getting down on their hands and knees for their Master_ _’_ _s whims?_

Feeling sick, she rolled over onto her hands and knees, offering him her backside. She could feel his frown boring into the spot between her shoulder blades and spoke before he could demand to know what she was doing. It was considerably easier if she didn’t have to look at him.

“We are not mates and I will not allow you to take me in that manner. If you want to take me face-to-face then you will have to use force to do it,” she declared coldly. “I will not betray Grimmjow by allowing you such a privilege.”

He laughed a third time at her display of will…

…and then his hands grasped her naked rear and gave it a harsh squeeze, just shy of bruising. She shook as he touched her and forced back her tears as those hands groped her ass before his fingertips found her folds. She flinched as Aizen jammed one of his fingers into her. Her dry passageway resisted the uncomfortable and mildly painful intrusion. He removed the digit and trailed his hands up her back before she felt his weight settle atop of her, his breath tickling her ear.

“You’ll wish you had let Gin prepare you,” he whispered into her ear, which was all the warning she got. The bastard abruptly shoved his way into her, with no regard to her comfort. She bit her forearm to stop from crying out, shocked at just how painful it was. Grimmjow had _never_ hurt her during sex, and she was momentarily relieved that he was probably unconscious and unable to access her emotions, because it was impossible to remain stone-faced as Aizen assaulted her. She knew it could hurt, but she had never experienced the kind of raw, burning agony of those first several thrusts. Aizen set a pace to his liking, rubbing her insides raw.

Karin cursed herself for thinking that he may have been right about letting Gin get her wet first, but she refused to show him any sign of weakness, including making any sound that would betray her discomfort. Aizen seemed to last a millennium before Karin felt a great deal of heated spunk splash into her, stinging her roughened tissues. She tried to pull away from him after he finished pulsing inside of her, but Aizen caught her hips and held her in place with his superior strength, leaving his deflated shaft buried inside of her.

“Unlike my wife, your bloodline ensures that you have a much higher chance of conceiving,” he purred into her ear, snaking one hand around her to grope at a breast. “A perfect size,” he noted, giving it a squeeze and rolling her nipple between his forefinger and thumb before continuing. “As such, I am not done with you yet.”

This time tears escaped the eyes she’d squeezed shut, trickles of saltwater running down each side of her face as she forced her body to remain still beneath his and tried to get a grip on the urge to tremble. He left himself inside of her, his dick acting as a plug to keep his semen trapped. Aizen contented himself with toying with her breasts and nibbling on her neck, though fortunately not on the side that bore her mating scar. To her horror, she felt his cock grow turgid inside of her not ten minutes later and he began the process all over again.

It hurt less the second time he raped her that night. Cum from his first ejaculation greased her passageway, but it hardly helped ease her suffering. She wasn’t bleeding just yet, though she suspected she might be by morning. He seemed to favour a pace that drew out the act, perhaps to torture her or to ensure that he would find his release, even if she didn’t. Which was fine by Karin, as the idea of Aizen making her climax made her want to puke.

She was completely numb by the third rape and had fallen to her stomach, unable to support her weight on her hands and knees, both of which were stiff and sore from taking the brunt of his body’s thrusts.

On the fourth round, she barely registered him inside of her, her insides fully stretched and lubed. The sleep deprivation had caught up to her at that point, sapping her ability to feel anything but the most base of things: heat, movement, cold and pain.

When he finally pulled away from her after the fifth round of ejaculating into her nearly unresponsive body, she didn’t have the energy to move and had passed out before he even finished redressing and left. She didn’t sleep for long though. Aizen hadn’t bothered to cover her when he left and she awoke to find her lips nearly blue and her teeth chattering from the early morning cold. The bedding below her was stained white with the cum that had leaked from her after he’d left

Her hand went to her stomach, which felt bloated, although that was probably more due to perception than reality. She remembered his promise, how he would rape her until her stomach swelled with his seed. It felt like it already and she did not look forward to any more nights like last.

After each round he had left himself inside of her, assuring the best success and a higher chance of more sperm making it into her womb. It had taken progressively longer for him to get it up again each time. Biology was on her side as far as that went. In fact, she doubted he would have any left for Unohana with how much he had pumped into her. Maybe the healer, she considered dizzily, would be spared her morning rape at her husband’s hands thanks to what he’d done with her for the majority of the previous night.

Bile rose in Karin’s throat and she tumbled out of bed to rush to her small bathroom, throwing up in the toilet after flinging up the lid. She retched a few more times into the bowl before the real shaking started and once it did, she couldn’t stop it. His dry and sticky cum clung to her reddened inner thighs, the skin chapped and raw where his legs had rubbed against her for hours, and she almost vomited again, except there was nothing left in her stomach. Instead, she crawled over to the shower. Reaching up, Karin jacked the lever all the way over to the hottest setting without a second thought.

Steam quickly filled the small bathroom, but she didn’t care and curled up on the floor, letting the hot spray soothe the cramping in her arms and legs and the strained muscles in her lower belly. She couldn’t help but to draw parallels to the times she had found Szayel like this, quivering in his bath and his skin a dull crimson from trying to scrub Aizen’s touch away. The only difference was that Aizen hadn’t cut her or tortured her on top of raping her. Still, she felt like she had a better understanding of, not just what Szayel went through, but what so many of the other women had suffered under their Masters over the years. It was as if the hazy lens she’d looked through for so long had been shattered, exposing her to the harsh, unprotected glare of the sun.

Grimmjow had never been violent with her, even though he had taken obvious delight in dominating her. He had always made sure she was wet and ready to receive him. She had, in her limited experience, assumed that the other Arrancar, in most cases, had done the same. Even Ulquiorra, cold and stone faced at the time, had never damaged Orihime in the first five years that he’d held her Claim. Orihime and Jushiro had both told her how pleasurable Claiming was, and she’d experienced that firsthand with Grimmjow. However, she had never really thought about how much unwanted, unprepared sex could hurt, nor how degraded she would feel afterwards.

“Karin-sama?” Gin called hesitantly, appearing in the doorway to her bathroom.

Karin didn’t answer, as she couldn’t hear him over the sound of the water hitting the tiles. She was too busy viciously scrubbing her skin to get rid of the sensation of Aizen’s skin sliding against hers. Gin caught her hands before she could begin to peel back her skin with the bristles of the brush and before the water underneath her ran red. Looking up into his dull silvery blue eyes, she could only stare into the face of man whose spirit had been thoroughly crushed, and saw her own future reflected in it.

Unable to hold it together any longer, she began to sob. Without a word, Gin held her in the same way she’d held Abisara just days ago. She didn’t know how long they sat like that under the shower, but eventually her weeping subsided and Gin helped her unsteadily to her feet, turning the shower off.

“Even if he gets what he wants, he won’t let me go or kill me in the end, will he?”

Her miserably-worded question lingered in the steam-laden air and after a minute, she felt him wrap a towel around her shoulders and drape another one over her head, to help dry her hair.

“C’mon, ya should eat, then Kami-sama wants ya ta watch th’twins.”

He hadn’t answered her question. Why would he? They both knew the answer. She had seen the serving girls, all of them with sweetly-feminine faces and tomboyish figures, sporting the spooked eyes and scars that meant they’d spent the night in Aizen’s company.

Karin had the feeling she’d only seen the tip of the iceberg as far as Aizen’s depravity towards his female partners. He’d refrain from the worst of it until she or Unohana bore him an heir and once that was done she’d be up for the same treatment. The realization was enough to make her want to turn back around and crawl into the shower for another scrubbing session. Unfortunately, she had more than herself to worry about and she couldn’t roll over and show her throat where her responsibilities were concerned.

_Even if I_ _’_ _m his captive and his plaything, I have to do what I can for Abisara-kun and Vindula-chan,_ she reminded herself.

She had to stay strong for them, had promised Szayel she would watch out for them. She had Aizen’s word that he wouldn’t hurt them, or her family, so long as she let him do what he wanted with her. He had never broken his word before, at least not directly. This was nothing compared to keeping the children, her mate and her daughter out of harm's way.

Karin stood up, willing her shaky legs to do what she wanted and stood still while Gin dried her off and helped her dress, his expression hooded once more as he made her presentable and braided her hair. She couldn’t let either of the twins see her with this defeated expression on her face, or see her cry. By the time she had eaten a breakfast that tasted like sawdust on her tongue and joined them in their room, she had managed to stuff the majority of her fear away and put on a tepid smile for them. While she knew she hadn’t fooled Abisara, Vindula seemed oblivious to the distress that bubbled underneath her carefully constructed façade. The little winged girl chattered a mile a minute about planting her garden, though the hand wringing and the constant rubbing of her fingers together might be a sign that, subconsciously, Szayel’s daughter might know that something was ‘off’ about this whole arrangement. Karin couldn’t be certain, but she seemed cheerful and excited enough as she described her day, so the human woman let it go for now.

The fact that the children were safe was, at least, a minor victory. Considering the circumstances, she would take what victories she could get and prayed that the others would find a way to rescue all of them soon.


	71. Claiming Birds and Bees

Nanao had never been to the house where Nnoitra had incarcerated Matsumoto Rangiku. She knew _where_ it was of course. Those Shinigami who had survived the Winter War had spent the first year tracking one another down via reiatsu signatures, partly to find out who else had made it out of the conflict alive and partly to pinpoint their locations. Then again, she had never really desired to seek out the abode of the Fifth Espada. However, this morning she felt as if she desperately needed some ‘girl talk.’ Aizen had trapped Karin, the one person she would have normally confided in about something this significant, away in the Palace. Nemu was gone, presumably with the Seventh Espada, into exile. That left Rangiku and Tatsuki as the only two Claimed women with whom she could discuss the rush of long-dormant emotions and urges that afflicted her, in response to what she and Starrk had done the night prior.

She arrived just as the two came out of the house, with the shy little thing from the 4th Division wedged between them. The young woman looked physically fine, though terribly embarrassed. The sexually-charged euphoria that had enveloped Nanao from the moment she’d woken up this morning diminished somewhat and her enthusiasm dampened a bit. The girl’s presence served as a sharp reminder that, other than Toshiro and Unohana’s respective Fukutaichou, both of whom had blushed redder than Renji’s hair when chosen, she was the probably the only one that hadn’t been really apprehensive about the whole scenario. When Aizen had made his announcement, she had expected at least a few of the officers on that platform to step down from their positions and bolt, but they hadn’t. Every last one of them had walked up onto that platform.

 _They have all lived with the threat of being Claimed over their heads for so long now that when the time actually came, they might have been prepared for it,_ she considered.

The Academy even had a short course on Arrancar and Claims, instituted in the last five years and taught by one of the more patient Numeros. Every Shinigami risked a Claim, particularly after a battle, and save for the five year period in which the Defence Net kept the Swarm’s attacks at bay, battles had been frequent. While civilians weren’t entirely safe, they tended to be considerably less attractive targets than Shinigami with martial skills and larger amounts of reiatsu to their names.

“Oh Nanao, you’re alright!” Rangiku gasped in naked relief as they caught sight of her waiting by the little gate that separated the yard from the street. She hurried up to Nanao, her sky-blue eyes looking the shorter woman up and down, as if making certain she was in one piece. “We were so worried for you!”

“I’m no worse for wear,” she said, offering both women a faint smile, before her eyes flickered to the officer next to Tatsuki. “How did things go here?”

“Kamoka-chan did just fine,” Tatsuki said, giving the young woman’s shoulders a reassuring squeeze as she did so. “She’s all set to return to work and get on with her duties and life. In fact, we were on our way to the 4th Division. Abisara-kun wanted to see the twins Rangiku-chan is carrying again. They haven’t been very cooperative and the thickening shells around them make it harder to get an accurate ultrasound. We received a message from Unohana-san that said Abisara re-calibrated the machine and that he wants us there this morning.”

Nanao nodded, secretly wishing that Szayel’s technology had been available to the 4th Division when she’d carried Hana. Being able to see her child in the womb would have been amazing. “Where is Tesra? Doesn’t he usually accompany you?” she asked, stepping to the side so the three women could come through the gate and join her on the street.

“He and Nnoitra are on patrol this morning. Poor man. He was pretty exhausted last night,” Tatsuki replied somewhat resignedly and Rangiku favoured her housemate with a pointed look and a dryly-worded reply.

“Well, you didn’t have to get him to Claim _you_ first before he Claimed Kamoka-chan!”

“It was merely a demonstration, though it was very _nice_ demonstration!”

Tatsuki gave Nanao and Rangiku a significant look while she stretched her arms over her head. The healer, who had remained silent thus far, looked as if she wanted to sink beneath the street’s paving stones and Nanao didn’t really blame her.

 _Maybe not the approach I would have chosen, but I don’t know this young lady’s circumstances either,_ she told herself.

Just talking about Claiming rekindled some of the heat in Nanao’s loins, and she probably blushed as well, though she’d have to do a better job of the latter if she wanted to match the hue on Kamoka-chan’s face at the revelation. Tatsuki’s declaration of ‘nice’ was a gross understatement. Claiming was unlike anything she’d ever experienced before. Now she knew what the other women were talking about when they said having been Claimed ruined sex with anyone else for the rest of one’s life and why Karin had such a ‘mink-in-heat’ attitude when it came to her mate.

“And how was _your_ evening?”

Rangiku’s question came with a sly wink and a smirk and Nanao wondered if the blonde would go so far as to waggle her eyebrows suggestively if she didn’t say something in the next few seconds.

“It was...” she trailed off, unable to put it into words. She definitely understood how so many Claimed women and men could fall in love with their Masters. After experiencing what Starrk had done to and with her, she’d been ready to give the Primera the moon itself. If he continued what he’d started, if he took her up on her offer tonight…

“Seireitei to Nanao-chan… do you read me?” she heard Tatsuki say. While the phrase made little sense, from the way the human woman had said it, she’d drifted off again and needed to ground herself.

“I understand why you three always get that dreamy look in your eyes when you talk about it,” she confessed and hoped she didn’t sound as flustered as she thought she did. Rangiku’s smile got just a touch wider at the admission.

“Like just now…” Tatsuki snickered.

“For all of Nnoitra’s many, _many_ faults, I can’t complain about his talent in bed, especially with that tongue!” The blonde closed her eyes and momentarily shivered in delight before catching herself and returning to the question that Nanao still hadn’t answered properly. “How was Starrk? I can’t picture someone that lazy finding the motivation to do much more than the bare minimum. Don’t tell me you had to do all of the work?”

 _Oh, you’re so off the mark on that one, Rangiku,_ the Taichou thought with a smirk of her own, which took her companions by surprise. Her sense of propriety, unfortunately, kept her from giving out any of the details in such a public space. She’d pictured this conversation happening in the privacy of a sitting room, not in the middle of the street.

“He was… concerned I wouldn’t be able to handle his power and his fears were, and still are, valid. I put a temporary Kido seal on his power and that helped somewhat. I wouldn’t want the full force of his reiatsu coming down upon me, at least not yet. He also hinted, rather strongly I might add, that I no longer have any excuse for not seeking and training to achieve Bankai.”

Rangiku’s expression morphed into one of satisfaction, though with a bitter edge to it.

“Good! Since a battlefield should ‘be left to real men,’ I haven’t had much, if any, chance to train with Haineko. I hear about it to no end too,” she grouched. “Tatsuki and I have long since drained the well as far as what we could teach each other, so now we really only train together for the sake of exercise.”

“Moreover, I can’t use any of those fancy Shinigami moves of yours. My skills were fine enough for slicing Locusts to bits, but don’t ask me to take down even the lowest seated officer,” Tatsuki added, sounding somewhat frustrated. “Thankfully, Tesra doesn’t put the same restrictions on me, but my lack of Kido and a Zanpakuto limits what we can do.”

The walk was a little longer than normal thanks to running across Soi Fon on the way, compounded with the added weight both pregnant women had gained, especially Rangiku, but they arrived at the 4th Division in good time. While Nanao didn’t get the chance to talk to the two others the way she had wanted, it was enough for now.

Unohana waited just inside the entrance to the 4th Division’s main building, standing like a sentinel whose rigid posture relaxed when she saw Kamoka. She gestured towards her pink-cheeked officer, who bowed to Tatsuki before she approached her Taichou. Unohana gave the girl a shrewd assessment before calmly murmuring something to her and motioning down one of the hallways. Kamoka nodded, bowed and then with one last, grateful look at Tatsuki, hurried off to complete whatever task her superior had assigned her. Now that yet another of her chicks had come back to the nest, the tension she could see in Unohana’s expression evaporated.

The scene reminded Nanao that she had her own flock to tend and she felt guilty that she was here instead of at the gates of the 5th Division, especially since yesterday’s ‘auction’ of officers was only the beginning.

 _How many of the rank and file will resign or desert when I tell them the news,_ she wondered. _Hopefully not too many. Active Shinigami or not, they will be open for the taking. Their location and job description won_ _’_ _t mean much,_ she thought sadly. Before she could take her leave, Unohana favoured her fellow Taichou with an expectant look that Nanao knew from long experience meant that she needed to stay right where she was.

“Ise-Taichou, do you have a moment?”

“Of course.”

“Excellent. All but Iemura-san have checked in and my Fukutaichou sent a message saying he will arrive later this morning. As he is usually quite punctual, I believe I can let him linger a bit today, all things considered.”

Nanao couldn’t help but smile at the other woman’s phrasing. There had been more than just a spark between the Fukutaichou of the 4th Division and Harribel’s fraccion at yesterday’s meeting. The two apparently knew one another and if there _had_ been a nascent relationship between them before now, Aizen’s new edict had all but violently shoved it into high gear. She also suspected that she would no longer hear Iemura Yasochika talking absently to himself or writing in that silly notebook of his about whether or not he should lose the glasses to obtain a love life.

Reaching up to touch the frames of her spectacles, she thought again about Starrk and had to block a few recent memories before her knees grew too weak to carry her. Rangiku and Tatsuki sat down in the waiting area and Nanao heard the blond’s delighted squeal upon finding a fashion magazine from the Living World that she hadn’t read yet.

Unohana didn’t lead her very far, just to the other side of the front desk. Nanao saw several very large boxes of sealed paper bags behind the counter, a number written prominently on the side of each box. There had to be hundreds of bags within them. Half-a-dozen bags packed into the front of each were tied with yellow ribbons. The rest sported either blue or pink ribbons. Unohana handed Nanao one of the boxes that featured the kanji for ‘5’ and regarded her gravely.

“Please see to it that each of the members of your Division gets one of these. The packets with yellow ribbons are for those seated officers Claimed last night. The packets with the pink ribbons are for the un-Claimed women, blue for the un-Claimed men. I’ve included a number of condoms in each bag and several months’ worth of birth control pills in the bags for your female troops, as well as pertinent information on their proper use. I assumed that, like most of our un-Claimed troops, they were not taking or carrying protection of any sort.”

Nanao almost dropped the box when she heard Unohana’s explanation, for she was one of those women. Her throat went dry and she balanced the box in one hand as the other shot down to her stomach, before she could think about what she was doing or what that gesture might reveal to her fellow Taichou.

She’d been so concerned about the risk that Starrk’s power might kill her while he performed the Claiming ritual that she hadn’t given a single thought to other potential consequences.

Nanao had to work up enough saliva to swallow and while she did, a number of different emotions warred with one another in the relative privacy of her brain, until she remembered another aspect of an active Claim. She chastised herself, for overlooking something as fundamental as birth control, as well as forgetting that Starrk could also feel what _she_ felt now. She quickly clamped down on the worst of it, taking deep breaths until her heartbeat began to slow down. Still, a small amount of panic seemed appropriate.

It wasn’t that the idea of bearing a pup for Starrk was abhorrent, especially after their talk this morning. She simply wasn’t ready for another child yet, especially with a rebellion fomenting. If she became pregnant now, she might not be able to fight, if Szayel took his sweet time to work out a way to counter the Hogyoku, and there were too many things on her plate as it was.

Then she mentally backtracked and swallowed again when she realized she was far more worried about the plan to overthrow Aizen than she was about the possibility she might have conceived last night. In fact, the idea didn’t bother her at all, just the timing. That told her that she was either farther gone about the Arrancar she’d dared kiss goodbye this morning than she wanted to admit, or that at some point in the past, her subconscious had resigned itself to a hybrid pregnancy, much as it had resigned itself to an eventual Claim.

Maybe she was just suffering from ‘empty nest syndrome.’ She loved Hana dearly, but her child was all but ready to strike out on her own. The week her daughter had lived at the barracks, while she’d sorted things out, had given Nanao a glimpse of the independent adult Hana would become. The thought of another infant in her arms, despite all of the things that came with it, such as labour pains, dirty diapers and the trials of pregnancy, held some real appeal. Starrk would make a fine father; he’d already shown her how deep his well of patience ran, considering what he’d put up with from Hana and Ajuga.

Someone waved a hand in front of her face and Nanao turned to see Tatsuki’s concerned face swim into view. She’d left Rangiku to sort through the magazines, apparently seeing Nanao’s shock and mistaking it for distress.

“Are you okay, Nanao-chan? That’s twice this morning!”

Tatsuki frowned at her. Blinking, Nanao took hold of the box with both hands and decided that with Unohana there, any dissembling would be a waste of time.

“I… yes, we never even thought about protection, and I most certainly haven’t been taking any pills since, well, ever. I had never been sexually active until that brief interlude with Shunsui, and that… well, _that_ was a bit of an accident,” she conceded with a blush and muttered, “Too much sake on _both_ our parts that evening.”

Unohana’s expression shifted to one of understanding.

“I don’t think you will have much to worry about, Ise-san. Starrk’s power far outweighs yours, and while you have been living with him for some time, you womb is not yet accustomed to directly receiving such powerful infusions of reiatsu. However, if you do not desire a child with him at this time, I would advise either using protection from here on out or staying abstinent, at least until we know if there was an unexpected success. Provided, of course, that he permits the use of birth control or abstinence. I would like not only you, but the other recently Claimed women in your Division to return in four days for testing,” Unohana all but commanded. Then she cautioned, “Do not start taking the pills until _after_ the test, and then try and avoid unprotected sex for at least a month to give the hormones in the pills a chance to work properly.”

 _Meaning that if I’m already pregnant, the first round of pills won’t disrupt things,_ Nanao concluded silently and indicated that she would do so. It was no-nonsense, practical advice, for which she was thankful.

“Very good. I would also ask that you request the same of the other un-Claimed women in your Division. If they do not wish to become pregnant, they should start taking the oral contraceptives immediately, especially as my husband has seen fit to declare open season upon us. As for the condoms, well, we can only hope they can get the men to wear them,” Unohana sighed.

Tatsuki gave the box of bags a shrewd look, and then folded her arms across her chest, grinning at both officers.

“Tesra had no idea what those were,” she informed them with a laugh. “I assume most Arrancar are the same. They really don’t have much use for them and I doubt there are many companies making condoms in Hueco Mundo.”

Nanao had to suppress a snicker of her own at the image Tatsuki’s joke conjured. Rangiku, hearing the muffled merriment, got to her feet and caught the tail end of her housemate’s comment.

“I foresee some _very_ awkward conversations taking place in the next few days.”

The blond sagely confirmed as she clutched a magazine whose cover promised articles on subjects like ‘ten new ‘must-have’ shades of lipstick for spring,’ and ‘what men really think of high heels.’ “Although, the real question is, can a man cast a Claim through a condom, considering the whole point of casting one is to get the reiatsu into the body?” she mused. “If not, then no amount of begging will work.”

“I can find out tonight,” Tatsuki quickly offered. “I doubt that Tesra will mind giving it a go. The latex barrier only stops seminal fluid, and since the reiatsu goes into the body _before_ ejaculation during a Claim, it should be fine. He won’t worry about his seed going to waste either, as I am already pregnant.”

Rangiku looked heavenward and folded her arms across her chest.

“He’s not going to have the energy to move tomorrow. You realize that, don’t you?”

“It would be useful knowledge to have. Please let me know the results, Lindocruz-san.”

Unohana offered Tatsuki a thankful smile, before the arrival of a much smaller, solemn presence with pink hair and green eyes stopped their explicit conversation in its tracks.

“Ah, Matsumoto-san, you are here. If you can follow me this way please,” Abisara directed, staring up at the gaggle of females.

Nanao scanned the child much as Unohana had examined Kamoka, pleased with what she saw. He seemed to be in perfect health, though she thought she could detect a few faint shadows beneath his eyes. They’d worried that Aizen would lock the twins in the equivalent of a cage, much as he’d done to Karin, but with so many hybrid pregnancies, Abisara had stepped in to take his father’s place. In Nanao’s opinion, he was far too young to have to shoulder that kind of responsibility, but there weren’t many others who could handle the machines Szayel had put together to monitor every expectant mother.

“Of course, Abisara-kun!” Rangiku replied, her voice taking on the old indulgent tone she’d use when she’d accosted her then-short Taichou with embarrassing hugs. Nanao hoped the kid, as adorable as he was, managed to stay one step ahead of the former Fukutaichou’s grasp during her exam.

Adjusting the box of paper bags filled with supplies for the members of her Division, she bade everyone farewell. Nanao paused only to send out messages to her seated officers, ordering them to assemble the unseated Shinigami in the cafeteria. It would be best to have the information session and bag handout in one large area. At this hour, the majority of her Division ought to be in the mess hall, eating breakfast, or dinner for those just coming in from an overnight patrol. Nanao also considered the box in her hands. With the 4th Division’s top officers otherwise occupied, Unohana would have had to assemble something like this at least a day in advance of yesterday’s meeting. She supposed that she ought to be grateful that Aizen had allowed his ‘wife’ to see to at least some of the potential health problems that another round of Claims would bring, but as glad as she was for Unohana’s foresight, she couldn’t help the anger that bubbled within her.

_Damn you, Aizen. I shouldn_ _’_ _t have to be handing these out to my people with their morning rations._

By the time she arrived, a headcount showed everyone but the ones on patrol were in attendance, in the middle of their morning meal. She set the box down on one of the empty tables and proceeded to examine her newly-Claimed officers. To her great relief, all of them were present and other than a bit of discomfort, they appeared unharmed, though a few seemed more withdrawn than usual, quietly talking amongst themselves. The general chatter in the hall died down as they realized their leader had joined them. Nanao squared her shoulders and raised her voice as she addressed them.

“Good morning,” she called, and they returned her salutation smartly. She was glad she’d fought off the instinct to sleep in, taking the time to see to her appearance that morning. Her Division and her subordinates would need someone who appeared to have her act together.

Everyone rose and added the expected bow to a superior officer, before she indicated that they could sit. On a normal day, she conducted large-scale Division meetings with far more formality, lining up each squad in the large courtyard outside. Unfortunately, given the uncomfortable subject of her speech, she decided it would be best to try to put them at ease, and an informal setting would best serve her purpose.

“As you all know, Aizen-kami held a meeting last night involving the top ten seated officers of each Division as well as his Arrancar along with those they have already Claimed. I’m here to tell you the reason behind that meeting: from this day onward, all seated officers from the 10th Seat up _must_ be Claimed to hold the rank.”

She let the announcement sink in, and most of the Division shot startled looks at her officers. Thankfully, they remained quiet for now, but she had a feeling that it would not last for long, not after the next bit of news.

“Unfortunately, that was not his only decree.”

She looked at the gathered faces around her and ploughed ahead with her speech. “He also increased the number of Claims his Arrancar are permitted to hold. The Espada may now hold three Claims and he’s allowed the Numeros a second Claim. Starting this evening, those Arrancar he selected based on their good track records with regard to their current… ‘pets’… will be permitted to choose another, if they did not do so last night. A week later, the next set will be permitted to choose, and so forth.”

The entire room rustled nervously, and a large number of hands shot up, but at least there was no shouting and wailing yet, a testament to the discipline she’d instilled in them. Picking one of the Shinigami, Nanao let the older woman ask her question.

“Why is this happening? Is it because of Karin-Fukutaichou?”

“Partially,” Nanao replied, seeing no reason not to give them at least part of the truth about the tyrant’s motives. “Aizen-kami said it was mainly a reward for his Arrancar and to help settle their instincts since so many are expecting children now. The Arrancar’s second Claim slot, in theory, will serve to provide them with guards for their ‘dens,’ for their pregnant women and their future offspring. This leads me to my next issue…”

Nanao gestured towards the box of paper bags that everyone had eyed and whispered about when she’d walked in with it. She explained the meaning of the coloured ribbons before she dropped the next bombshell.

“Unohana gave me these to hand out to everyone in the Division. Each bag contains information on Claiming, several condoms and for the women not already on it, birth control pills. For those Claimed last night, please take a yellow bag. The pink and blue ribbons are for the un-Claimed among us, for women and men respectively. Please make sure you get one with a ribbon appropriate for your gender and Claim status before you leave the room and familiarize yourselves with its contents. That is a direct order.”

Sensing a break in her speech, more hands shot up. This time she picked one of the young men, a recent addition from the last batch of students from the Academy.

“Um, not saying I am going to or anything, but, uh, what if we decide to leave?” he asked hesitantly.

“You have the right to resign, of course,” she began, when her 4th Seat spoke up, drawing the assembly’s attention her way.

“The Arrancar won’t care whether you are a Shinigami or not. Resigning won’t really change anything, other than how much spare time you have and the fact that you’ll lose three square meals a day.”

Several Shinigami stared down at their plates, as if only now understanding that the food necessary to maintain reiatsu levels high enough to perform their jobs came with a price tag. Nanao wished that the woman could have softened her words, but that didn’t make them any less true. “They make their choices based on power, on how much reiatsu you have and how strong they think you are. A badge doesn’t mean anything.”

The young man paled as he took in his superior’s assessment of his chances and his options, but Nanao still felt the need to expound upon it.

“Kami-sama made it clear that any Shinigami Claimed were to be permitted to continue in their duties. He also made it clear that he would not put up with any physical abuse that would hinder their ability to perform those duties, which is why the least abusive Arrancar were permitted to pick first and why he started with the top officers. The balance between the Realms is on very shaky ground and we cannot have anything interfering with our primary purpose, which is performing konso.”

Fewer hands shot up as she declared this, though she sensed there were still unanswered questions out there. She picked another, nervous-looking young woman, one who joined her ranks two years ago.

“Umm, what is Claiming like? Does it hurt?”

“No,” Nanao told her, trying to alleviate that particular fear, before the image of Kuchiki Byakuya reared its ugly head. There was always the possibility that someone like Barragan, or worse, Yammy, might set their sights on someone in her Division. Unfortunately, she’d have to address that issue if and when it came up, rather than spook her already-anxious underlings with it.

“It’s the best sex you will ever have!” her pregnant 8th Seat all but gushed with stars in her eyes. That declaration led to another question and answer session, only now the focus shifted from Nanao to her Claimed officers. She called a brief halt to it only to remind everyone to take a paper bag and that if they wished to resign to see her in her office before they did so, to avoid having them listed as traitors. Taking the bags with the yellow ribbons, she personally handed them out to those she’d had to lead to the ‘auction’ the night prior. Most took them with a murmured ‘thank you, Taichou’. Tasking her 3rd Seat with distributing the rest of the bags and informing the Division members not present when they checked back in, Nanao informed her Division that they could have an extra hour for breakfast before retreating to her office. She also fought off a blush when she tucked one of the bags with a yellow ribbon into her sleeve.

They were taking it better than she had expected, but as she had told Starrk last night, they had lived with the threat of it for fifteen years. Claiming was less of an ‘unknown’ and thus there was less fear about it. If anything, she swore that many of the young women seemed positively intrigued with the idea, an interest that only grew as the discussion began to place more and more emphasis on how pleasurable having a Claim cast on one’s person could be. There was an awful lot of blushing going on out there.

 _Crazy children._ Nanao shook her head in exasperation as she sat down at her desk with a cup of tea to start on the paperwork. _The way it sounded before I left, **they** would be the ones pestering the Arrancar to Claim **them**._

An hour later, her 3rd Seat knocked on the door and entered. Everyone had returned to his or her duties and while there was some fear and apprehension, he reported to her that he didn’t think anyone would desert or resign because of the edict. Those with Claims had done a good job reassuring those without them that it would, more or less, be okay and that a few had even left themselves open to be approached throughout the day if anyone had more questions.

Nanao thanked him for his assessment, accepted the pile of papers from the First Division, and sat back in her chair as he left, looking out the window at the mid-morning sun. There were dozens of puffy clouds floating across the sky, looking almost like a herd of lost sheep. She hoped the other Divisions fared as well as hers and took the news without too much issue. There was little their Taichou could do for them at present.

Then she took one look at the paperwork piled on her desk and decided she’d spent enough time worrying. Instead, she gratefully lost herself in requisition forms, the budget for next month and the reports Aizen’s Division had sent her. Nanao hadn’t realized how much of the morning had passed until she heard a second knock on the door. A glance at the clock on the wall told her it was a few minutes to noon and her guest turned out to be the last person she expected to see.

“Lilynette! What brings you by?”

“Not much,” the girl answered with a shrug as she entered the room and plunked down on one of the cushions surrounding the tea table in the corner of the room, where she’d held planning sessions with Karin-chan “ _He_ was just too much of a chicken to come down alone. Well, actually, I had to grab him by the balls and drag him.” Lilynette jerked her thumb back towards the still-open door. “Sorry if he won’t get it up for a bit.”

Nanao turned her attention back to the door to see an embarrassed and somewhat uneasy Starrk awkwardly cradling what looked like a picnic basket in his arms. He was the very picture of a shy boy trying to make a good impression on the girl of his dreams. To Nanao it seemed so strange that such a powerful creature seemed so worried that she wouldn’t want to join him and that he’d be willing to let her make the choice whether to accept or reject the offer of a meal. It was certainly flattering, though she wasn’t certain whether the picnic had been his or Lilynette’s idea. She suspected the latter and the girl’s next words confirmed her suspicions.

“The weather is _way_ too nice to be trapped in this stuffy old office, and I know you won’t leave unless I drag out, so here we are,” Lilynette announced smugly. “Shiro-chan is going to meet us at the park!”

Ah, so their ‘date’ would have a chaperone of sorts, although she had a feeling Lilynette had dragged Jushiro into this more for Starrk’s sake than her own. Turning the outing into a ‘family affair’ would make things less difficult with Jushiro and the little girl who stared up at her expectantly acting as a buffer.

“Well, it is a beautiful day,” she agreed, looking out the window once more, “and it would be a shame to waste it.”

Nanao set her brush down and rose from her seat and she swore she saw Starrk relax as she made her way around the desk. Several hours had passed since their talk this morning, and she had the feeling that _he_ feared that _she_ might have second thoughts about her invitation, the one she intended to hold him to later on this evening.

Contemplating another round with him resulted in an involuntary rush of what she could only describe as lust, one she couldn’t hope to keep him from feeling given their proximity to one another. Her glasses couldn’t hide her traitorous blush as she absently brushed the wrinkles in her haori away and attempted to recover some of her decorum. Starrk, probably feeling her lapse in discipline, tensed and for a second he wore an incredulous look before the corner of his mouth turned up in a sleepy, half-smile.

Lilynette either ignored the exchange or missed it entirely as she jumped to her feet and the three of them left for lunch, Nanao pausing to let her 3rd Seat know where she was going. Starrk drew the curious gaze of almost every person they encountered. She passed a few of the other Arrancar, who were either on their way to her Division or leaving it. Nanao recognized the ones who already held Claims, and stopped the ones she didn’t know in order to learn their names. Most seemed very cautious, even deferential, while talking with her, which she found ironic. Of course, their trepidation might have had to do with the presence of both halves of the Primera hovering behind her. She was at least happy to see that almost all of the Arrancar with whom she spoke showed an active interest in those they had Claimed. Then she pondered whether those who had yet to choose a second ‘pet’ would be able to handle the rush of young women that might track them down, insisting that he or she Claim them.

_Perhaps it would do them some good to be the ones_ _‘_ _hunted_ _’_ _for a change._

Despite the delays, they still made it to the park, leaving enough time to eat without having to rush lunch. In fact, when they arrived, she saw that Jushiro had just finished putting down a blanket in a shady spot beneath a sakura tree. The light filtering through the pink and white blooms gave everything below a rosy, inviting aura. The older Taichou looked up, waved and Lilynette ran forward to help him straighten the fabric. They had passed a number of other couples with baskets and blankets too; with a day as nice as this on hand, everyone seemed to have had a similar idea.

They even strolled by Sung Sun and a slightly-mussed Iemura, but she doubted the two lovebirds saw them. They were far too busy reclining on a blanket Nanao recognized as being the sort issued by the 4th Division and staring, besotted, at one another, oblivious to everything going on around them. That included the still-packed basket next to the blanket. She suspected that the Swarm could invade at that moment and the two would hardly notice until a Locust landed on them.

“How did everything go with your Division this morning?” she asked Jushiro as she sat down on the blanket, arranging her clothing and taking in a deep breath of perfumed air, courtesy of the cherry blossoms overhead.

“Well enough,” he sighed, “considering what I had to tell them. Fortunately, several of those with current Claims were more than willing to provide information. I am not certain, but the younger ones actually seemed intrigued.”

Nanao snorted delicately and informed them she had noticed the same with her own troops, including her observation that, heaven forbid, some of the recent graduates might be the ones chasing down Arrancar, demanding that they Claim them immediately.

“I will never understand the younger generation.” Jushiro said ruefully as he watched the breeze shake a few of the pink petals loose, to fall to the ground nearby. “I fear that they’ll see only one side of it and not take into account the rest.”

“You ain’t _that_ old, Shiro-chan,” Lilynette scoffed as she opened the basket and began rummaging around for bento boxes. “You worry too much as well. It isn’t good for you.”

“I have a thousand years to my name,” the white-haired Taichou informed Lilynette. “One can hardly call that ‘young’.’

“Well you’re not walking with a cane or stooped like an old granny, so I don’t wanna hear it!”

When the little Arrancar finished handing out containers and retrieved a sealed container of tea and four cups, she gave Nanao an intent, expectant look. “So, I hear you might actually like Starrk? And I don’t mean in the like sense, I mean in the _like_ sense?”

Nanao’s eyebrows went up at the intensity that coloured the rushed, somewhat garbled question. She had never really thought about what Lilynette, or Hana for that matter, would think of the idea of her and Starrk as something more than a master and servant. Starrk and Hana had reconciled, so she didn’t think her daughter would resent any relationship that developed. Up until yesterday, Lilynette had treated her as a sort of surrogate aunt and the Primera as an annoying parent or neglectful uncle. Nanao decided to give her as honest an answer as she dared.

“I’m willing to see where this may go, if anywhere,” she replied, trying to keep her voice neutral in the hopes that she could maintain some sort of control of the conversation’s direction. Starrk’s Claim on her was less than twenty-four hours old and she was still trying to get used to the feel of the energy surrounding her. From the way Lilynette was going on about things, one would think that the Primera’s female side had already picked out Nanao’s wedding ensemble.

“So, you ain’t opposed to cubs?”

Jushiro promptly choked on his mouthful of tea. 

“Lilynette,” Starrk sighed at his counterpart, but didn’t get any farther than that before the little Arrancar rounded on him with a snarl and a raised fist.

“Can it Starrk! You are too scared and lazy to get an answer for yourself, so instead of it taking fifty years for her to figure out what you want, leave it to me! Nanao, cubs?” Lilynette re-asked sharply.

She had a hard time not laughing at her interrogator’s childish enthusiasm, while disbelief warred with amusement, using Jushiro’s face as a battleground. She shouldn’t have been surprised at the query; Lilynette was a part of Starrk, the more talkative, emotional and outgoing side. It made perfect sense for Lilynette’s interest to mirror Starrk’s, though her pushiness about the issue rendered her speechless for the space of a few seconds. It took her almost a minute to find her tongue.

“I am not opposed to having more children, _should_ a relationship based on mutual trust and affection form between us,” she said truthfully, looking at Starrk as she did so. He shifted at her answer and fixed half-lidded slate-blue eyes on her. Fortunately, her long years of dealing with Shunsui had taught her to interpret moods through a haze of sleepiness and she could see the keen interest lurking there.

“How long do you think that would take?” Lilynette asked a little too eagerly, leaning forward as she did so.

“That’s not something that one can order up, like a container of takeout food,” Nanao replied. “Such things take time to develop. That, and there are _other_ issues we must address first. I’ll be hard-pressed to perform my duties as a Taichou,” she pointed out, hoping Lilynette understood her carefully worded answer, “or _fight_ , if I’m pregnant.”

Lilynette’s face momentarily contorted in confusion, before she gave an ‘ah’, then checked to see if anyone was eavesdropping. Thankfully, she seemed to get the hint: no children until after they’d dealt with Aizen and secured the Seireitei for the rebels.

“Awesome! So there is a chance after all!” Lilynette crowed this in delight, literally throwing what little discretion she had to the wolves. “Hear that Starrk? We could have cubs of our own! And here we thought we would never see the day, especially since Harribel was never interested in us.”

Nanao bit into one of the mochi in her bento, the pickled plum within making her mouth water. She’d eaten more than her fair share of these while pregnant with Hana, since her craving for sour things had grown along with her belly.

Lilynette was more than happy with the idea of a relationship between them. Somehow, having the little Arrancar’s support made Nanao breathe easier, as well as consider the prospect of children with more enthusiasm. Hana was one of the best things that had ever happened to her. If not for her daughter, she probably would have wasted away from solitude and despair. Jushiro had become somewhat reclusive for a time, after Shunsui’s death. The two had been friends for more centuries than Nanao had even been alive and doting on Hana had helped bring him around as well.

If anything could counteract loneliness, it was a child. Moreover, as she glanced at Starrk, she felt a resonance in her own soul, especially when he made the effort to reach up and brush away a few stray sakura flowers that had landed on her haori without her noticing. The Espada let his hand linger a few seconds against her cloth-covered thigh before pulling it away and reaching for his chopsticks. Again, she felt a tiny thrill at the physical contact, to her chagrin. She usually had exemplary control of her faculties too. At this rate, she’d be no better than the girls in her Division about whom she’d had such reservations.

Lilynette chortled something along the lines of ‘’bout damned time,’ while Jushiro pretended to be _very_ interested in the decoratively cut slices of hard-boiled egg in his bento.

 _Birds of a feather indeed,_ Nanao thought, and then paused when that idea led to another, interesting consideration. What would happen if an Aspect of Death were ‘cured’ of the very thing that had driven that soul to become a Hollow in the first place? Harribel appeared to have gone through some significant changes in the last six months and she suspected that while the Third’s pregnancy might be part of it, it wasn’t the only reason.

Looking down at the uneaten bento in her lap, Nanao concluded that she wasn’t going to discover the answer to that question any time soon. Taking the lid from the box, she tucked into her lunch and set aside all other thoughts in favour of refuelling before she had to go back to the office. Parenthood was never lonely, but then, the little gathering beneath the sakura tree wasn’t bad either, especially with Lilynette badgering ‘shiro-chan about eating more, lest he become ‘too weak to deal with stacks of stupid paperwork.’ Jushiro’s mild, patient replies that ‘yes he would take his medicinal tea, once he got back to his desk, if Lilynette made it for him’ served to blunt the young Arrancar’s bossy orders.

Still…giving in to her curiosity, she tried to picture Starrk, as he inched back to slouch against the trunk of the sakura tree, with two, equally droopy toddlers sprawled on either side of him, the three snoozing together in a puppy pile.

Nanao firmly clamped down on her imagination before it could create anything else so ridiculously sentimental. What really bothered her was that she could see that particular scenario far too clearly for comfort.

_You said it yourself. A solid relationship, based on trust and affection, first. We_ _’_ _ll see where that leads,_ after _we_ _’_ _ve overthrown the enemy._

Then again, there was that unopened paper bag on her desk, with its yellow ribbons serving as a warning of what might already be. Nanao sipped at her tea thoughtfully and vowed that her conversation with Starrk this evening, regarding ‘preparation,’ encompassed that word’s full meaning.


End file.
